Et álibi aliórum plurimórum sanctórum Mártyrum et Confessórum, atque sanctárum Vírginum.
And elsewhere in divers places, many other holy martyrs, confessors, and holy virgins.
Пресвятая Богородице спаси нас!  (Santíssima Mãe de Deus, salva-nos!)
RDeo grátias. R.  Thanks be to God.
December is the month of the Immaculate Conception.
2023
23,658  Lives Saved Since 2007
 
 
The All-Merciful Kykko Icon of the Mother of 
God: This icon was painted,
according to Tradition, by the holy Evangelist Luke.





3rd_day_Nativity.jpg

December 27 – Mary Mother of Saint John
– First Apparition at Paray-le-Monial
 
The girl was healed on the spot 
 
In the 17th century, in the midst of the profound religious upheaval due to the spiritual crisis caused by the Renaissance and the Reformation, the story of "a poor little hidden servant of the Divine Heart of Our Lord, Saint Margaret Mary" (Saint John Paul II, Paray-le-Monial, France, 1986) was to make the town of Paray-le-Monial known well beyond the borders of France and Europe, in fact all around the world.

The story begins in 1647, when a child was born in Vérovres, a small village in Burgundy. The name of the baby was Margaret Alacoque. She grew up to be a very devout child, yearning to give her life to God. Tradition says that after she made a vow to the Virgin to dedicate herself to the religious life, the girl was instantly healed of an illness. As a sign of gratitude, she added the name "Mary" to her Christian name on the day of her confirmation.

Margaret Mary joined the order of the "Visitation of Holy Mary" founded in 1610 in Annecy, France, by Saint Jane de Chantal, from which the monastery of Paray sprang. On December 27, 1673, the date of his first apparition to Margaret Mary, Our Lord began to reveal his message to this holy nun in four visions: "Behold the Heart that has so loved men ..." Source : www.paraylemonial.fr

CAUSES OF SAINTS April  2014  

Oh Mary pray for us sinners who have recourse to thee.

Joyful Mystery on Monday Saturday   Glorius Mystery on Sunday Wednesday
   Sorrowful Mystery on Friday Tuesday   Luminous Mystery on Thursday Veterens of War

Acts of the Apostles

Nine First Fridays Devotion to the Sacred Heart From the writings of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque
How do I start the Five First Saturdays?
Mary Mother of GOD 15 Promises of the Virgin Mary to those who recite the Rosary .

POPE FRANCIS'S PRAYER INTENTIONS FOR  DECEMBER 
Christmas, hope for humanity.
That the birth of the Redeemer
may bring peace and hope to all people of good will.
Please pray for those who have no one to pray for them.

December 27

St. John the Apostle          St. John the Evangelist   104      John the Divine,  (RM)
1348 Blessed Bonaventure Tolomei died while tending to his plague-stricken fellow citizen OP
1539 John Stone 1/40 Martyrs of England and Wales, OSA Priest M (RM)

1571 Johannes Kepler, born DECEMBER 27: In book five of The Harmonies of the World (1619), Kepler wrote:
"O, Almighty God, I am thinking Thy thoughts after Thee!...The die is cast; the book is written, to be read either now or by posterity, I care not which. It may be well to wait a century for a reader, as God has waited six thousand years for an observer."


December 27 - St John the Apostle and the Evangelist
   The Angelus, a simple prayer that punctuates our days…
The Angelus prayer [called Mary's Hour in Brazil] is a beautiful popular expression of the faith.
It is a simple prayer, recited at three specific times during the day. It thus punctuates the rhythm of our daily activities: in the morning, at midday, and at sunset.
But it is an important prayer. I encourage each of you to recite it, along with the Hail Mary.
It reminds us of a luminous event which transformed history: the Incarnation,
 the moment when the Son of God became man in Jesus of Nazareth.
Pope Francis Angelus of Friday, July 26, 2013, in Rio de Janeiro


 December 27 – Mary, Mother of Saint John – First Apparition at Paray-le-Monial (France)
 
Why talk about the "Hearts" of Jesus and Mary?
 First of all, because it is a term used both in the official decrees of the Magisterium and also in the liturgy (Feast of the Sacred Heart, memory of the Heart of Mary). It is also an aspect of themselves that Jesus and Mary revealed in several of their apparitions: to St Mary Margaret Alacoque, St Catherine Labouré, the young visionaries of Fatima, St Faustina Kowalska, etc.
The foundations of the devotion to the "Heart" are found in the Scriptures.
Biblical language as well as our everyday language use the word "heart" to mean the very center of each human being and as the symbol of love. Talking about the Hearts of Jesus and Mary is the same as talking about their love for the Heavenly Father and for us humans.
Today, humanity more than ever needs kindness, charity and Divine Mercy. We are participants in them through the consecration to the Hearts of Jesus and Mary and by the life that results from it.  
Through their love, Jesus and Mary want to guide us to selfless love, which is the essence of holiness, to which we are all called. Because they love us, they want to save us, human beings, who have gone astray.
The Mary of Nazareth Team

 
Nine First Fridays Devotion to the Sacred Heart From the writings of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque
December 27 - Mary, Mother of Saint John
The First Moment of Christian Tradition Began in Mary's Heart (I)
If a profound unity is to be found in the whole Bible, there is accordingly a beginning and an end, because the Holy Spirit desires to reveal the mystery of God to us throughout history. But who provides the end of the Scriptures?
Saint John and the Johanic texts. All official Revelation concludes with the Johanic texts.  Because of this, it is in the light of St John that we should read Scripture and understand the Revelation.
Why did the Holy Spirit choose Saint John to give us the final secrets? Because John was the beloved disciple, but also because John was the one who received Mary into his home. This is also very important.
The Word of God is a living word associated with "good earth", with tradition and tradition began in Mary's heart.
Mary is Christian tradition at its source. The one that was to give us the final passages of the mystery of God's Word had to be the same one that had intimately bonded with the mystery of the "good earth".
In this way, John bonded with Christ's heart and bonded with Mary.
He bonded with her at the time when they were both present and lived together the mystery of the Cross with Jesus.
Excerpt from "Follow the Lamb" (Suivre l'Agneau) Father Marie-Dominique Philippe Saint Paul Ed. 2005

 Institution of the Knights of Our Lady (1370)
December 27
Mary's Own Understanding
I am convinced that when the shepherds arrived at the grotto, they did not go straight to the Christ Child.
They must have looked first at the Blessed Virgin Mary, looked in her eyes;
she would have shown them her Child, and then they would have looked at Jesus with her eyes.

Try to meditate upon the mysteries of the Gospel with the Virgin's eyes. Think about the death of Christ on the Cross. Do you think you have exhausted the depths of that mystery? Then say to yourself,
"How would Mary have seen her Son on the cross?" Then ask Mary, "Give me a little of your own understanding."
In this manner, the Virgin is no longer the reality of the holiness that you venerate in your eyes;
she takes you, wraps you in her mantle, and helps you to meditate all these mysteries through her own eyes.
Charles Cardinal Journet,  (Entretiens sur Marie - Conversations on Mary, Parole et Silence, 2001)

       Protomartyr St Stephen.
      
St. John the Apostle
         St. John the Evangelis
 104      John the Divine,  (RM)
 282 St. Maximus Patriarch of Alexandria
 400 St. Fabiola opened a hospice for poor pilgrims at Porto
 410 ST NICARETE, VIRGIN; belonged to a good family of Nicomedia and left home to live in Constantinople, where she devoted herself to good works. She is said to have successfully treated St John Chrysostom when he was ill;
 686 Saint Theodore, Archbishop of Constantinople
 841 St. Theodore bishop of Nicaea and Theophanes (martyred) brothers monks supported icons
1133 Blessed Hesso (Esso) of Beinwil, OSB, Abbot (AC)
1156 Blessed Walto of Wessobrünn his goodness and ability to work miracles OSB, Abbot (AC)
1273 Blessed Adelheidis of Tennenbach, OSB Cist. V (PC)
1348 Blessed Bonaventure Tolomei died while tending to his plague-stricken fellow citizen OP
1539 John Stone 1/40 Martyrs of England and Wales, OSA Priest M (RM)

December 27 - MARY MOTHER OF SAINT JOHN - OUR LADY OF THE KNIGHTS
For To Us Has Been Born a Little Child, God Before the Ages (III)
The mother's Father has willingly become her Son, the infants' savior is laid as an infant in a manger.
As she who bore him contemplates him, she says,
"Tell me, my Child, how were you sown, or how were you planted in me? I see you, my flesh and blood, and I am amazed, because I give suck and yet I am not married. And though I see you in swaddling clothes, I know that the flower of my virginity is sealed, for you preserved it when, in your good pleasure, you were born a little Child, God before the ages."
Romanus the Melodist (d. c. 560) Hymn I on the Nativity, 2
December 27 - Mary, Mother of Saint John
The First Moment of Christian Tradition Began in Mary's Heart (I)
If a profound unity is to be found in the whole Bible, there is accordingly a beginning and an end, because the Holy Spirit desires to reveal the mystery of God to us throughout history. But who provides the end of the Scriptures? Saint John and the Johanic texts. All official Revelation concludes with the Johanic texts.

Because of this, it is in the light of St John that we should read Scripture and understand the Revelation. Why did the Holy Spirit choose Saint John to give us the final secrets? Because John was the beloved disciple, but also because John was the one who received Mary into his home. This is also very important. The Word of God is a living word associated with the "good earth", with tradition and tradition began in Mary's heart.

Mary is Christian tradition at its source. The one that was to give us the final passages of the mystery of God's Word had to be the same one that had intimately bonded with the mystery of the "good earth". In this way, John bonded with Christ's heart and bonded with Mary. He bonded with her at the time when they were both present and lived together the mystery of the Cross with Jesus.
Excerpt from "Follow the Lamb" (Suivre l'Agneau)
Father Marie-Dominique Philippe Saint Paul Ed. 2005


Protomartyr St Stephen. This is the third day of the three day Winter Pascha.
The third day of the Nativity is dedicated to the Protomartyr St Stephen.
{Orthodox}
Tuesday, December 27, 2011 St. John, Apostle, Evangelist (Feast) {Catholic}
December 27; the Third Day of the Christmas Octave,
St. John the Apostle, Evangelist
 
The Holy Protomartyr and Archdeacon Stephen was the eldest of the seven deacons, appointed by the Apostles themselves, and therefore he is called "archdeacon." He was the first Christian martyr, and he suffered for Christ when he was about thirty. In the words of Asterias, he was "the starting point of the martyrs, the instructor of suffering for Christ, the foundation of righteous confession, since Stephen was the first to shed his blood for the Gospel."

Filled with the Holy Spirit, St Stephen preached Christianity and defeated Jewish teachers of the Law in debate. The Jews maligned St Stephen, saying that he had uttered blasphemy against God and against Moses. St Stephen came before the Sanhedrin and the High Priest to answer these charges. He gave a fiery speech, in which he recounted the history of the Jewish nation, and denounced the Jews for persecuting the prophets, and also for executing the promised Messiah, Jesus Christ (Acts ch. 7).

During his speech, St Stephen suddenly saw the heavens opened and Jesus Christ standing at the right hand of God. The Jews shouted and covered their ears, and rushed at him. They dragged him out of the city and stoned him, but the holy martyr prayed for his murderers. Far off on the heights stood the Mother of God with the holy Apostle John the Theologian, and She prayed fervently for the martyr. Before his death St Stephen said, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. O Lord, lay not this sin to their charge." Then he joyfully gave up his pure soul to Christ.

The body of the holy Protomartyr Stephen, left to be eaten by beasts, was secretly taken up by the Jewish teacher Gamaliel and his son Habib, who buried Stephen on his estate. They both believed in Christ, and later received holy Baptism.

St Stephen also commemorated August 2 (Translation of his relics) and September 15 (Uncovering his relics in the year 415).
St. John the Apostle
<In what is thought to be the tomb of a Roman noblewoman in the Catacombs of St. Tecla, the oldest known image of the Apostle John has been discovered.
<
 Apud Ephesum natális sancti Joánnis, Apóstoli et Evangelístæ, qui, post Evangélii scriptiónem, post exsílii relegatiónem et Apocalypsim divínam, usque ad Trajáni Príncipis témpora persevérans, totíus Asiæ fundávit rexítque Ecclésias, ac tandem, conféctus sénio, sexagésimo octávo post passiónem Dómini anno mórtuus est, et juxta eándem urbem sepúltus.
       At Ephesus, the birthday of St. John, apostle and evangelist.  After writing his gospel, and after enduring exile and writing the divine Apocalypse, he lived until the time of Emperor Trajan and founded and governed the churches of all Asia.  Worn out with age, he died in the sixty-eighth year after the passion of our Lord and was buried near Ephesus.

100 ST JOHN THE EVANGELIST, APOSTLE
ST JOHN THE EVANGELIST distinguished as the “disciple whom Jesus loved” and often called in England, as by the Greeks, “the Divine” (i.e. the Theologian), was a Galilean, the son of Zebedee and brother of St James the Greater with whom he was brought up to the trade of fishing. He was called to be an apostle with his brother, as they were mending their nets on the Sea of Galilee, soon after Jesus had called Peter and Andrew. Christ gave them the nickname of Boanerges, “sons of thunder”, whether as commendation or on account of some violence of temperament (cf. Luke ix 54) is not clear.
   St John is said to have been the youngest of all the apostles, and outlived the others, being the only one of whom it is sure that he did not die a martyr. In the gospel, which he wrote he refers to himself with a proud humility as “the disciple whom Jesus loved”, and it is clear, he was one of those who had a privileged position. Our Lord would have him present with Peter and James at His transfiguration and at His agony in the garden; and He showed St John other instances of kindness and affection above the rest, so that it was not without human occasion that the wife of Zebedee asked the Lord that her two sons might sit the one on His right hand and the other on His left in His kingdom.
   John was chosen to go with Peter into the city to prepare the last supper, and at that supper he leaned on the breast of Jesus and elicited from Him, at St Peter’s prompting, who it was should betray Him. It is generally believed that he was that “other disciple” who was known to the high priest and went in with Jesus to the court of Caiaphas, leaving St Peter at the outer door. He alone of the apostles stood at the foot of the cross with Mary and the other faithful women, and received the sublime charge to care for the mother of his Redeemer. “ ‘Woman, behold thy son.’ ‘Behold thy mother.’ And from that hour the disciple took her to his own.”

Our Lord calls us all brethren, and He recommends us all as such to the loving care of His own mother: but amongst these adoptive sons St John is the first-born. To him alone was it given to be treated by her as if she had been his natural mother, and to treat her as such by honouring, serving and assisting her in person.
When Mary Magdalen brought word that Christ’s sepulchre was open, Peter and John ran there immediately, and John, who was younger and ran faster, arrived first. But he waited for St Peter to come up, and followed him in: “and he saw and believed” that Christ was indeed risen. A few days later Jesus manifested Himself for the third time, by the Sea of Galilee, and He walked along the shore questioning Peter about the sincerity of his love, gave him the charge of His Church, and foretold his martyrdom. St Peter, seeing St John walk behind and being solicitous for his friend, asked Jesus, “Lord, what shall this man do?”
And Jesus replied, “If I will have him to remain till I come, what is it to thee Follow thou me.” It is therefore not surprising that it was rumoured among the brethren that John should not die, a rumour which he himself disposes of by pointing out that our Lord did not say, “He shall not die”.
   After Christ’s ascension we find these two apostles going up to the Temple and miraculously healing a cripple. They were imprisoned, but released again with an order no more to preach Christ, to which they answered, “If it be just in the sight of God to hear you rather than God, judge ye. For we cannot but speak the things we have seen and heard.”
Then they were sent by the other apostles to confirm the converts, which the deacon Philip made in Samaria. When St Paul went up to Jerusalem after his conversion he addressed himself to those who “seemed to be pillars” of the Church, chiefly James, Peter and John, who confirmed his mission among the Gentiles, and about that time St John assisted at the council which the apostles held at Jerusalem.
Perhaps it was soon after this that John left Palestine for Asia Minor. No doubt he was present at the passing of our Lady, whether that took place at Jerusalem or Ephesus; St Irenaeus says that he settled at the last-named city after the martyrdom of SS. Peter and Paul, but how soon after it is impossible to tell. There is a tradition that during the reign of Domitian he was taken to Rome, where an attempt to put him to death was miraculously frustrated (see May 6); and that he was then banished to the island of Patmos, where he received those revelations from Heaven which he wrote down in his book called the Apocalypse.

After death of Domitian in the 96, St John could return to Ephesus, and many believe that he wrote his gospel at this time. His object in writing it he tells us himself: “These things are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that, believing, you may have life in His name.”
It is entirely different in character from the other three gospels, and a work of such theological sublimity that, as Theodoret says, it “is beyond human understanding ever fully to penetrate and comprehend”. His soaring thought is aptly represented by the eagle:  his symbol.
St John also wrote three epistles. The first is called catholic, as addressed to all Christians, especially his converts, whom he urges to purity and holiness of life and cautions against the craft of seducers. The other two are short, and directed to particular persons: the one probably to a local church; the other to Gaius, a courteous entertainer of Christians. The same inimitable spirit of charity reigns throughout all his writings. This is not the place to refer to the objections that have been raised against St John’s authorship of the Fourth Gospel.
Early writers speak of St John’s determined opposition to the heresies of the Ebionites and of the followers of the gnostic Cerinthus. On one occasion he was going to the baths when, learning that Cerinthus was within, he started back and said to some friends that were with him, “Let us, brethren, make haste and be gone, lest the bath wherein is Cerinthus, the enemy of truth, should fall upon our heads”. St Irenaeus tells us he received this from the mouth of St Polycarp, St John’s personal disciple.
   Clement of Alexandria relates that in a certain city St John saw a young man of attractive appearance in the congregation, and being much taken with him he presented him to the bishop whom he had ordained there, saying, “In the presence of Christ and before this congregation I commend this young man to your care”. The young man was accordingly lodged in the bishop’s house, instructed, kept to good discipline, and at length baptized and confirmed. But the bishop’s attention then slackened, the neophyte got into bad company, and became a highway robber. Some time after St John was again in that city, and said to the bishop, “Restore to me the trust which Jesus Christ and I committed to you in presence of your church”. The bishop was surprised, imagining he meant some trust of money. But when John explained that he spoke of the young man, he replied, “Alas ! he is dead”. “What did he die of?” asked St John. “He is dead to God and is turned robber”, was the reply. Thereupon the aged apostle called for a horse and a guide, and rode away to the mountain where the robber and his gang lived. Being made prisoner he cried out, “It is for this that I am come: lead me to such an one”. When the youth saw it was St John he began to make off with shame. But John cried out after him, “Child, why do you run from me, your father, unarmed, and an old man? There is time for repentance. I will answer for you to Jesus Christ. I am ready to lay down my life for you. I am sent by Christ.” At these words the young man stood still and burst into tears, tears wherein, as Clement says, he sought to find a second baptism. Nor would St John leave that place until he had reconciled the sinner to the Church. This charity that he had so conspicuously himself he constantly and affectionately urged in others. St Jerome writes that when age and weakness grew upon him at Ephesus so that he was no longer able to preach to the people, he used to be carried to the assembly of the faithful, and every time said to his flock only these words:
“My little children, love one another.” When they asked him why he always repeated the same words, he replied, “Because it is the word of the Lord, and if you keep it you do enough”. St John died in peace at Ephesus about the third year of Trajan, that is, the hundredth of the Christian era, being then about ninety-four years old according to St Epiphanius.

As we may learn from St Gregory of Nyssa, from the Syriac breviarium of the early fifth century, and from the Carthaginian Calendar, the practice of celebrating the feast of St John immediately after that of St Stephen is of very ancient date. In the original text of the Hieronymianum (about A.D. 600) the commemoration seems to have been thus entered: “The Assumption of St John the Evangelist at Ephesus and the ordination to the episcopate of St James, our Lord’s brother, who was the first of the Jews to be ordained by the apostles bishop of Jerusalem and gained the crown of martyrdom at the time of the pasch.” One might have expected John and James, the Sons of Zebedee, to be coupled in such a notice, but this is clearly the other James, the son of Alpheus, who is now honoured with St Philip on May 1. The phrase “Assumption of St John” is notable, containing as it does a clear reference to the last portion of the apocryphal “Acts of St John”. In this widely circulated fiction, dating from the late second century, it was represented (evidently in view of the saying that this particular disciple “should not die”,
John xxi, 23) that St John at the end of his days in Ephesus simply disappeared:  his body was never found. On the other hand, according to the Greeks his resting-place at Ephesus was well known, and famed for marvels. The Acta Johannis, though preserved to us only imperfectly and condemned for heretical tendencies by many early authorities, e.g. Eusebius, Epiphanius, Augustine and Turibius of Astorga, seems to have done much to create a traditional legend. From this source, or in any case from pseudo-Abdias, comes the story, which was the basis of the frequently recurring representation of St John with a chalice and a viper. Aristodemus, the high priest of Diana at Ephesus, challenged the apostle to drink of a poisoned cup. He did so without sustaining any harm and thereby converted the high priest himself. Upon this incident seems to be founded the folk-custom, prevalent especially in Germany, of the “Johannis-Minne”, the loving cup or poculum charitatis, which was drunk in honour of St John. In medieval ritualia a number of forms of blessing are preserved which were supposed to render such a draught efficacious against dangers to health and helpful to the attaining of Heaven. 
The literature about St John and his writings is of course extremely extensive and need not be gone into here. On the more general historical question consult Fouard, St John (Eng. trans.); Fillion, St Jean l’Evangéliste (1907); C. C. Martindale, Princes of his People, vol. (1920); J. Chapman, John the Presbyter (1911); and on the liturgical aspects, Duchesne, Christian Worship, pp. 265—268; and Kneller in Stimmen aus Maria Laach, vol. lxvii (1904), pp. 538—556. The apocryphal literature is very fully discussed in Hennecke, Neutestament­liche Apokryphen (1904), especially pp. 423—459; and its sequel, Handbuch zu den neutesta­mentlichen Apokryphen (1904), pp. 492—543. The best edition of the Acta Johannis is that of Max Bonnet (1898). For special points see Delehaye’s CMH., and Synaxarium Cp., c. 665; A. Franz, Die Kirchlichen Benediktionen in Mittelalters (1909), vol. i, pp. 294—334; Bächtold-Stäubli, Handwörterbuch des deutschen Aberglaubens, vol. iv, cc. 745—757 ; and Künstle, Ikonographie, vol. ii, pp. 341—347.  
It is God who calls; human beings answer. The vocation of John and his brother James is stated very simply in the Gospels, along with that of Peter and his brother Andrew: Jesus called them; they followed. The absoluteness of their response is indicated by the account. James and John “were in a boat, with their father Zebedee, mending their nets. He called them, and immediately they left their boat and their father and followed him” (Matthew 4:21b-22).

For the three former fishermen—Peter, James and John—that faith was to be rewarded by a special friendship with Jesus. They alone were privileged to be present at the Transfiguration, the raising of the daughter of Jairus and the agony in Gethsemane. But John’s friendship was even more special. Tradition assigns to him the Fourth Gospel, although most modern Scripture scholars think it unlikely that the apostle and the evangelist are the same person.

John’s own Gospel refers to him as “the disciple whom Jesus loved” (see John 13:23; 19:26; 20:2), the one who reclined next to Jesus at the Last Supper, and the one to whom he gave the exquisite honor, as he stood beneath the cross, of caring for his mother. “Woman, behold your son....Behold, your mother” (John 19:26b, 27b).

Because of the depth of his Gospel, John is usually thought of as the eagle of theology, soaring in high regions that other writers did not enter. But the ever-frank Gospels reveal some very human traits. Jesus gave James and John the nickname, “sons of thunder.” While it is difficult to know exactly what this meant, a clue is given in two incidents.

In the first, as Matthew tells it, their mother asked that they might sit in the places of honor in Jesus’ kingdom—one on his right hand, one on his left. When Jesus asked them if they could drink the cup he would drink and be baptized with his baptism of pain, they blithely answered, “We can!” Jesus said that they would indeed share his cup, but that sitting at his right hand was not his to give. It was for those to whom it had been reserved by the Father. The other apostles were indignant at the mistaken ambition of the brothers, and Jesus took the occasion to teach them the true nature of authority: “...[W]hoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave. Just so, the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:27-28).

On another occasion the “sons of thunder” asked Jesus if they should not call down fire from heaven upon the inhospitable Samaritans, who would not welcome Jesus because he was on his way to Jerusalem. But Jesus “turned and rebuked them” (see Luke 9:51-55).

On the first Easter, Mary Magdalene “ran and went to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and told them, ‘They have taken the Lord from the tomb, and we don’t know where they put him’” (John 20:2). John recalls, perhaps with a smile, that he and Peter ran side by side, but then “the other disciple ran faster than Peter and arrived at the tomb first” (John 20:4b). He did not enter, but waited for Peter and let him go in first. “Then the other disciple also went in, the one who had arrived at the tomb first, and he saw and believed” (John 20:8).

John was with Peter when the first great miracle after the Resurrection took place—the cure of the man crippled from birth—which led to their spending the night in jail together. The mysterious experience of the Resurrection is perhaps best contained in the words of Acts: “Observing the boldness of Peter and John and perceiving them to be uneducated, ordinary men, they [the questioners] were amazed, and they recognized them as the companions of Jesus” (Acts 4:13).

The evangelist wrote the great Gospel, the letters and the Book of Revelation. His Gospel is a very personal account. He sees the glorious and divine Jesus already in the incidents of his mortal life. At the Last Supper, John’s Jesus speaks as if he were already in heaven. It is the Gospel of Jesus’ glory.

Comment:    It is a long way from being eager to sit on a throne of power or to call down fire from heaven to becoming the man who could write: “The way we came to know love was that he laid down his life for us; so we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers” (1 John 3:16).

Quote:    A persistent story has it that John's "parishioners" grew tired of his one sermon, which relentlessly emphasized: "Love one another." Whether the story is true or not, it has basis in John's writing. He wrote what may be called a summary of the Bible: "We have come to know and to believe in the love God has for us. God is love, and whoever remains in love remains in God and God in him" (1 John 4:16).
St. John the Evangelist son of Zebedee and Salome
Saint John the Divine as the son of Zebedee, and his mother's name was Salome [Matthew 4:21, 27:56; Mark 15:40, 16:1]. They lived on the shores of the sea of Galilee. The brother of Saint John, probably considerably older, was Saint James. The mention of the "hired men" [Mark 1:20], and of Saint John's "home" [John 19:27], implies that the condition of Salome and her children was not one of great poverty.

SS. John and James followed the Baptist when he preached repentance in the wilderness of Jordan. There can be little doubt that the two disciples, whom Saint John does not name (John 1:35), who looked on Jesus "as he walked," when the Baptist exclaimed with prophetic perception, "Behold the Lamb of God!" were Andrew and John. They followed and asked the Lord where he dwelt. He bade them come and see, and they stayed with him all day. Of the subject of conversation that took place in this interview no record has come to us, but it was probably the starting-point of the entire devotion of heart and soul which lasted through the life of the Beloved Apostle.

John apparently followed his new Master to Galilee, and was with him at the marriage feast of Cana, journeyed with him to Capernaum, and thenceforth never left him, save when sent on the missionary expedition with another, invested with the power of healing. He, James, and Peter, came within the innermost circle of their Lord's friends, and these three were suffered to remain with Christ when all the rest of the apostles were kept at a distance [Mark 5:37, Matthew 17:1, 26:37]. Peter, James, and John were with Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane. The mother of James and John, knowing our Lord's love for the brethren, made special request for them, that they might sit, one on his right hand, the other on his left, in his kingdom [Matthew 20:21]. There must have been much impetuosity in the character of the brothers, for they obtained the nickname of Boanerges, Sons of Thunder [Mark 3:17, see also Luke 9:54]. It is not necessary to dwell on the familiar history of the Last Supper and the Passion. To John was committed by our Lord the highest of privileges, the care of his mother [John 19:27]. John [the "disciple whom Jesus loved"] and Peter were the first to receive the news from the Magdalene of the Resurrection [John 20:2], and they hastened at once to the sepulchre, and there when Peter was restrained by awe, John impetuously "reached the tomb first."

In the interval between the Resurrection and the Ascension, John and Peter were together on the Sea of Galilee [John 21:1], having returned to their old calling, and old familiar haunts.

When Christ appeared on the shore in the dusk of morning, John was the first to recognize him. The last words of the Gospel reveal the attachment which existed between the two apostles. It was not enough for Peter to know his own fate, he must learn also something of the future that awaited his friend. The Acts show us them still united, entering together as worshippers into the Temple [Acts 3:1], and protesting together against the threats of the Sanhedrin [Acts 4:13]. They were fellow-workers together in the first step of Church expansion. The apostle whose wrath had been kindled at the unbelief of the Samaritans, was the first to receive these Samaritans as brethren [Luke 9:54, Acts 8:14].

He probably remained at Jerusalem until the death of the Virgin, though tradition of no great antiquity or weight asserts that he took her to Ephesus.
When he went to Ephesus is uncertain. He was at Jerusalem fifteen years after Saint Paul's first visit there [Acts 15:6]. There is no trace of his presence there when Saint Paul was at Jerusalem for the last time.

Tradition, more or less trustworthy, completes the history. Irenaeus says that Saint John did not settle at Ephesus until after the death SS. Peter and Paul, and this is probable. He certainly is not there when Saint Timothy was appointed bishop of that place. Saint Jerome says that he supervised and governed all the Churches of Asia. He probably took up his abode finally in Ephesus in 97. In the persecution of Domitian he was taken to Rome, and was placed in a cauldron of boiling oil, outside the Latin gate, without the boiling fluid doing him any injury. [Eusebius makes no mention of this. The legend of the boiling oil occurs in Tertullian and in Saint Jerome]. He was sent to labor at the mines in Patmos.
At the accession of Nerva he was set free, and returned to Ephesus, and there it is thought that he wrote his gospel. Of his zeal and love combined we have examples in Eusebius, who tells, on the authority of Irenaeus, that Saint John once fled out of a bath on hearing that Cerinthus was in it, lest, as he asserted, the roof should fall in, and crush the heretic. On the other hand, he showed the love that was in him. He commended a young man in whom he was interested to a bishop, and bade him keep his trust well. Some years after he learned that the young man had become a robber.
Saint John, though very old, pursued him among the mountain vastnesses, and by his tenderness recovered him.

In his old age, when unable to do more, he was carried into the assembly of the Church at Ephesus, and his sole exhortation was, "Little children, love one another."

The date of his death cannot be fixed with anything like precision, but it is certain that he lived to a very advanced age. He is represented holding a chalice from which issues a dragon, as he is supposed to have been given poison, which was, however, innocuous. Also his symbol is an eagle.

From The Lives of the Saints by the Rev. S. Baring-Gould, M.A., published in 1914 in Edinburgh.

St. John the Apostle Patron of Asia Minor
St. John, Apostle and Evangelist
St. John, the son of Zebedee, and the brother of St. James the Great, was called to be an Apostle by our Lord in the first year of His public ministry. He became the "beloved disciple" and the only one of the Twelve who did not forsake the Savior in the hour of His Passion. He stood faithfully at the cross when the Savior made him the guardian of His Mother.
His later life was passed chiefly in Jerusalem and at Ephesus. He founded many churches in Asia Minor. He wrote the fourth Gospel, and three Epistles, and the Book of Revelation is also attributed to him.
 Brought to Rome, tradition relates that he was by order of Emperor Dometian cast into a cauldron of boiling oil but came forth unhurt and was banished to the island of Pathmos for a year. He lived to an extreme old age, surviving all his fellow apostles, and died at Ephesus about the year 100.

St. John is called the Apostle of Charity, a virtue he had learned from his Divine Master, and which he constantly inculcated by word and example.
The "beloved disciple" died at Ephesus, where a stately church was erected over his tomb. It was afterwards converted into a Mohammedan mosque.

John is credited with the authorship of three epistles and one Gospel, although many scholars believe that the final editing of the Gospel was done by others shortly after his death.
He is also supposed by many to be the author of the book of Revelation, also called the Apocalypse, although this identification is less certain. 
104 John the Divine, Apostle and Evangelist (RM)
Born in Galilee, c. 6 AD; died c. 104; feast day in the Eastern Church is September 26.
John, the "beloved disciple" of our Lord (John 13:23; 19:26; 20:2ff; 21:7; 21:24), is said to have written the Book of Revelation, the last book of the Bible, while exiled on the island of Patmos off the coast of modern Turkey. His book is a superb conclusion to the Holy Scripture. The book of Genesis begins the account of man's spiritual odyssey by describing our expulsion from the Garden of Eden. The Book of Revelation is a vision of encouragement to await our restoration to Paradise.

John was the son of Zebedee and Salome, and the younger brother of James the Great. These two brothers earned their livelihood as fishermen on Lake Genesareth until they were called by Jesus to be fishers of men (Matt. 4:21-22; Mark 1:19-20). The youngest of the Apostles (estimated at about 25 at the time of his call), John, seems to have been a follower of John the Baptist, so particularly does he relate all the circumstances of the precursor's life, yet through modesty conceals his own name, as in other parts of the Gospel bearing his name.

Christ gave James and John the surname of "Boanerges"--The Sons of Thunder (Mark 3:17)--to express their passionate natures. They wanted to call down fire from Heaven on the Samaritans who rejected Christ (Luke 9:54-56) and they said they were willing to suffer as witnesses to Jesus' suffering (Mark 10:35-41). This holy boldness would benefit the faith by allowing them to make the law of God known without fearing the power of men.

Why was John beloved of Christ? First, the love that John bore Him, then his general meekness and peaceable disposition that made him very much like Our Lord himself, and his singular privilege of chastity, his virginal purity rendered him worthy of this more particular love.

Saint Augustine says, "He was chosen by our Lord, a virgin, and he always remained such." Augustine also wrote, "Christ was pleased to choose a virgin for his mother, a virgin for his precursor, and a virgin for his favorite disciple. His church suffers only those who live perfectly chaste to serve Him in His priesthood, where they daily touch and offer His virginal flesh upon the altar."

That John was one of those closest to Jesus is demonstrated by the fact that only he, Peter, and James were present at such events as the Transfiguration (Matt. 17:1; Mark 9:2; Luke 9:28), the healing of Peter's mother-in-law (Mark 1:29-31), the raising of Jairus's daughter from the dead (Mark 5:22-43; Luke 8:40-56), and the agony in the Garden of Gethsemane (Matt. 26:37ff; Mark 14:33ff). For this reason, Saint Paul names John, Peter, and James as "these leaders, these pillars" of the Church in Jerusalem (Gal. 2:9).
Segment from Fra Angelico's The Last Supper
San Marco Monastery, Florence, Italy
Image by Bob Boeri © 1997

He and Peter were sent to prepare the Passover (Luke 22:8ff) and were the first Apostles at the tomb of the Risen Christ (John 20:3- 8). At the Last Supper, he leaned upon his Master's breast. John was the only Apostle at the Crucifixion, where Jesus entrusted His mother to the care of His friend (John 19:25-27).


He was at the court because he was known to the high-priest, and, as he tells us, he managed to get Saint Peter admitted by the servants into the Court of Caiaphas (John 18:15-16).
Later, when Christ appeared to them on the lake and ate with them upon the shore John, by instinct, knew who it was and gave word to Peter (John 21:7). Together they walked along the edge of the lake. Seeing John following, Peter being solicitous for his friend asked our Lord what would now become of him, thinking perhaps He would show him some special favor. "What is that to thee?" our Lord asked: "So I will have him to remain until I come; follow thou me." The supposition arose among the disciples that John would not die, but he himself took care to tell us that no such thing was meant (John 21:20-23).

He lived for about 70 years after the death of Jesus. For much of that time John continued to be associated with the chief of the Apostles, Saint Peter. The two are together when the lame man is healed at the Beautiful Gate (Acts 3:1-11). He was imprisoned with Peter and appeared before the Sanhedrin (Acts 4:1-21). He accompanied Peter to Samaria (Acts 8:14) to transmit the Holy Spirit to the new converts. John must have remained in Jerusalem a number of years after Jesus' Ascension, though he sometimes preached abroad, for Saint Paul some years after his conversion met him there and John confirmed him in his mission to the Gentiles. He probably assisted at the Council of Jerusalem c. 49-51.

Tradition says that his apostolic labors were first to the Jews in the provinces of Parthia, where he planted the Christian faith. In all probability, John was present at the passing of Mary. He came again to Jerusalem in the year 62, to confer with the other apostles who were still living. After this he went to Ephesus and made Lesser Asia his peculiar care, where he established churches and governed the congregations.

His apostolic authority was universal, for though Saint Timothy remained Bishop of Ephesus, until his martyrdom in 97, there was no difference between them on account of jurisdiction. It is probable that he put bishops in all the churches in Asia, for while the apostles lived, they supplied the churches by their own appointments, in virtue of their commission from Christ himself.

A beautiful story about John is handed down to us by Saint Clement of Alexandria. Near the end of his life, having returned to Ephesus from Patmos, at one place Saint John chose a young man for the priesthood, whom he was much taken with. He left him in charge of a tutor, to be instructed, baptized, and confirmed. On his return to the same place some time afterward he said to the tutor: "Restore to me the trust which Jesus Christ and I committed to you in the presence of your congregation." "Alas," they said, "he is dead." "Dead? Of what did he die?" inquired the saint. "He is dead to God," they replied.

After his instruction and baptism he fell into bad company, sank from one degree of wickedness to another, forsook the Church, even became the leader of a robber-band. John pursued him in his mountain fastness and coming up with him implored him, saying, "There is yet room for repentance; your salvation is not irrecoverable. I will answer for you to Jesus Christ. I am ready most willingly to lay down my life for you, as Jesus laid down his life for all men. Stay, believe me, I am sent by Christ."

The young neophyte stood still, his eyes cast upon the ground and he burst into tears. He embraced his tender father and implored forgiveness. He found a second baptism in his tears. The saint kissed him affectionately and restored him by the holy Sacraments to God and to the Church. This great vein of charity runs through the whole life and writings of Saint John; it is the great and peculiar law of the Christian faith, without which all pretensions to a divine religion would be vain and worthless.

Another story tells of the shock of some visitors finding John playing with his disciples. He told one of the visitors, who was carrying a bow, to shoot an arrow. The visitor complied by shooting several. John then asked him if he could do that without stopping. No, the other answered, the bow would break. That's the way our spirit is, the blessed one concluded: it would break if one did not sometimes relax the tension. In daily life, games and pranks allow the spirit to rest. One must know how to pause: that is the role of games (Saint Thomas Aquinas, Question 169, Article 10, Summa Theologica).

Other anecdotes are recorded, such as John's fear that the baths at which the heretic Cerinthus was bathing would fall down because he was in them. Other traditions have influenced artistic representations of the saint.

In the year 95, during the second general persecution under Emperor Domitian, John was apprehended in Asia and sent to Rome as a prisoner, where he miraculously escaped martyrdom. Tertullian says that he emerged unscathed from a cauldron of boiling oil. His persecutors attributed the miracle to sorcery and he was exiled to the island of Patmos. Until its removal from the Roman calendar in 1960, this event used to be commemorated liturgically in the Western Church on May 6, as the Feast of Saint John before the Latin Gate (ante Portam Latinam). On account of this trial he is given also the title martyr, although he was the only Apostle who did not suffer martyrdom. He did, however, thus fulfill what Christ had foretold that he should drink of his chalice of suffering.

In the following year he was banished to the island of Patmos, where in this retirement, in his extreme old age, he was favored with the heavenly vision recorded in the Book of Revelation (this is the legend, folks). His exile was not of long duration, for at the death of Domitian, all his edicts were declared void by the senate because of his excessive cruelty.

John was free to return and he reached Ephesus again in 97. Some think that he wrote his Gospel on his return, when he was 92 years old. The tradition that identifies John as the author of the Fourth Gospel goes back to the 2nd century. It is certain, thanks to the discovery of the Chester-Beatty fragment, that it was committed to writing by the beginning of the 2nd century, or earlier. Though his authorship is disputed, it is strongly supported by internal and external reasons. There seems to be no compelling reason for rejecting the identification of John with the beloved disciple of the Gospel who was a witness to the events described. Written later than the Synoptic Gospels, the Gospel of John is highly theological and stresses the divinity of Christ, possibly as a counter to the Docetist heresy.

The Book of Revelation, also ascribed to him, is so different in thought, style, and content from the genuine Johannine writings that it seems more likely to have been the product of John's followers.

When weakness grew upon him and he was no longer able to preach, he would be carried into the assembly of the faithful. Constantly he was heard to say: "My dear children, love one another"--and when asked why he so often repeated the same words, he said, "Because it is the precept of the Lord and if you comply with it you do enough." Saint Jerome says: "These words ought to be engraved in characters of gold and written in the heart of every Christian." Saint John died at Ephesus when he was over 90 years old (Attwater, Benedictines, Bentley, Delaney, Encyclopedia, Farmer, Green-Armytage, Lawrie, Murray, White).

Saint John is generally represented as a young and beautiful man; when he is shown as a patriarch, he still looks as though he is capable of playing with children.

When portrayed as a young man at times he is shown (1) in scenes from the Gospel and Passion of Christ, or Acts of the Apostles as in ; (2) writing the Book of Revelation on the island of Patmos (sometimes the devil flies away with his inkpot) as in these works by Hieronymus Bosch, Hans Burgkmair the Elder, Hans Memling, and Nicolas Poussin; (3) with an eagle (representing the soaring majesty of his Gospel) and the book of the Gospel; (4) with a chalice from which a serpent or little dragon emerges (see the legend below under patronage); (5) boiled in oil at the Latin Gate, but unharmed.

When he is shown in old age, he is either (1) reading, writing, or holding his epistle, (2) raising Drusilla from the dead, or (3) carried to heaven (Correggio: Passing Away of St. John) (Roeder).

Saint John is the patron of art dealers, bookbinders, booksellers, compositors, engravers, lithographers, painters, printers, publishers, papermakers, sculptors, writers (Roeder), and Asiatic Turkey (White). He is invoked for protection against poison, which originates from the legend that he was offered a poisoned cut by the high priest of Diana, and he drank without incurring harm as per Jesus' prophecy (Mark 16:18) (White).
The All-Merciful Kykko Icon of the Mother of God: This icon was painted, according to Tradition, by the holy Evangelist Luke.
It received its name "Kykkiotisa" from Mount Kykkos, on the island of Cyprus. Here it was placed in an imperial monastery (so designated because it was built with donations from the Emperor), in a church named for it. Before coming to the island of Cyprus, the wonderworking icon of the Mother of God was brought throughout the region by the will of God. At first, it was in one the earliest Christian communities in Egypt, and then it was taken to Constantinople in 980, where it remained in the time of Emperor Alexius Comnenos (end of the eleventh to early twelfth century).

During these years it was revealed to the Elder Isaiah through a miraculous sign, that by his efforts the wonderworking image painted by the Evangelist Luke would be transferred to Cyprus. The Elder exerted much effort to fulfill the divine revelation.

When the icon of the Mother of God arrived on the island, many miracles were performed. The Elder Isaiah was instrumental in building a church dedicated to the Theotokos, and placing the Kykko Icon in it. From ancient times up to the present day, those afflicted by every sort of infirmity flock to the monastery of the Mother of God the Merciful, and they receive healing according to their faith. The Orthodox are not the only ones who believe in the miraculous power of the holy icon, but those of other faiths also pray before it in misfortune and illness.

Inexhaustible is the mercy of the Most Holy Theotokos, Mediatrix for all the suffering, and Her icon fittingly bears the name, the "Merciful."The wonder working "Kykkiotisa" Icon of the Mother of God possesses a remarkable peculiarity: from what time period is unknown, but it is covered by a half shroud from the upper left corner to the lower right, so that no one is able to see the faces of the Mother of God and the Divine Infant. The depiction of the Mother of God appears to be of the Hodigitria ("Directress") type, as is also the Smolensk Icon of the Mother of God. The head of the Mother of God is adorned with a crown.
A copy of this icon is particularly venerated at the women's Nikolsk monastery in the city of Mukachev.
282 St. Maximus Patriarch of Alexandria
 Alexandríæ sancti Máximi Epíscopi, qui satis clarus et insígnis título confessiónis efféctus est.
       At Alexandria, St. Maximus, bishop, well known and renowned by reason of his confession.
Egypt, administering the patriarchate while Pope St. Dionysius ( 26/27 December, 268) was in exile and then succeeding him. Reportedly, he drove the heretical bishop of Antioch, Paul of Samosata, out of Egypt.

Maximus of Alexandria B (RM). Maximus was an Alexandrian priest who administered the see from 251 to 264, while the patriarch, Saint Dionysius, was in exile. Upon the death of Dionysius, Maximus succeeded him as bishop of Alexandria during a period of calm. Maximus drove Paul of Samosata into exile from Egypt (Benedictines, Encyclopedia).

410 ST NICARETE, VIRGIN; belonged to a good family of Nicomedia and left home to live in Constantinople, where she devoted herself to good works. She is said to have successfully treated St John Chrysostom when he was ill;
St. Niceras, virgin at Constantinople, , who was renowned for sanctity in the time of Emperor Arcadius.
 Constantinópoli sanctæ Nicáretes Vírginis, quæ, sub Arcádio Imperatóre, cláruit sanctitáte.

THE Roman Martyrology mentions today St Nicarete, an oldish woman of Constantinople who “flourished in holiness during the reign of the Emperor Arcadius”. She belonged to a good family of Nicomedia and left home to live in Constantinople, where she devoted herself to good works. She is said to have successfully treated St John Chrysostom when he was ill, and he wished her to become a deaconess and supervise the unattached consecrated virgins of the city; but St Nicarete would undertake neither office. She was a steadfast upholder of the bishop against his adversaries, and in consequence suffered persecution with St Olympias and other faithful ones, and like them chose to go into exile. It is not known whither she went or when or where she died, but it was probably her native Nicomedia.

The church-historian Sozomen speaks of Nicarete (bk viii, ch. 3), who is believed to be the lady skilful in the healing art to whom Chrysostom refers in his fourth letter to Olympias. There seems, however, to be no evidence of cultus even among the Greeks. See further Tillemont, Mémoires, vol. xi, pp. 133—134.  

Arcadius (first 'Byzantine' ruler) born in Spain around AD 377, the son of Theodosius the Great and Aelia Flavia Flaccilla.
His father raised him to the rank of co-Augustus of the east in AD 383, though due to his young age it was a solely ceremonial title at first.  But when in AD 395 Theodosius died, Arcadius succeeded him as emperor of the east at the age of eighteen. Meanwhile his brother Honorius became emperor of the west.  This division of the empire into eastern and western parts was the decisive one, which sent the two on separate ways. Had the empire effectively been split by Valentinian, it had still functioned as a unit. One of the two emperors had always enjoyed seniority over the other. However, the accession of Arcadius and Honorius is widely seen as the division of the Roman empire into two completely separate parts.
Arcadius is therefore often quoted as the first 'Byzantine' ruler.
400 St. Fabiola opened a hospice for poor pilgrims at Porto

399 ST FABIOLA, MATRON
FABIOLA, of the gens Fabia, was one of the patrician Roman ladies who entered the path of holiness and renunciation under the influence of St Jerome, but her life was for the most part very different from that of St Marcella or St Paula or St Eustochium, and she was not a member of the circle that gathered round Jerome while he was living in Rome. Or at least a coolness sprang up between them, for Fabiola was of a lively, passionate and headstrong disposition, and when the dissolute courses of her husband made married life impossible she obtained a civil divorce and, her husband yet living, united herself with another man. Upon the death of her second consort Fabiola submitted to the canons of the Church, presenting herself for public penance at the Lateran basilica, and was readmitted to communion with the faithful by Pope St Siricius. She now devoted her great wealth to works of charity, gave large sums to churches, and communities in Italy and the adjoining islands, and founded a hospital for the sick whom she gathered from the streets and alleys of Rome, waiting on them in person. It was a great moment in the history of our civilization, for this was the first Christian public hospital in the West of which there is record.
In the year 395 Fabiola went to visit St Jerome at Bethlehem, in company with a relative named Oceanus, and stayed there with SS. Paula and Eustochium. Jerome was on bad terms with the bishop of Jerusalem, John, on account of the
controversy with Rufinus about the teaching of Origen, and attempts were made, even fraudulently, to enlist the sympathy and influence of Fabiola on the side of the bishop, but they failed to shake her loyalty to her teacher. Fabiola wanted to spend the rest of her days at Bethlehem, but the life of the consecrated women was not suited to her: she needed company and activity, and St Jerome remarks that her idea of the solitude of the stable of Bethlehem was that it should not be cut off from the crowded inn. A threatened incursion of the Huns finally determined her to quit Palestine. They had overrun Syria, and Jerusalem itself seemed in danger, so St Jerome retreated with his followers to the coast for a while. When the peril was past and they returned to Bethlehem, Fabiola went back to Rome.

At this time a priest named Amandus put a dubium to St Jerome: Might a woman, who by force had been made to take another man while her dissolute husband was still living, be received to the communion of the Church without doing canonical penance? This question ostensibly referred to the sister of Amandus, but is generally supposed to have been put on behalf of Fabiola as a “feeler” before taking a third partner. St Jerome made no mention of her in his reply, but was contemptuous of the “force” alleged in the case: “If your sister wishes to receive Christ’s body and not to be accounted an adulteress, she must do penance”, he answered. 

For the remaining three years of her life Fabiola continued her works of public and private charity, notably being associated with St Pammachius in the foundation at Porto of a large hospice for poor and sick pilgrims. It was the first of its kind and within a year of its opening “became known”, says St Jerome, “from Parthia to Britain”.
   But Fabiola continued to be restless, and was on the point of setting out on another long journey when death overtook her. The whole of Rome attended the funeral of their beloved bene­factress. St Jerome was in touch with St Fabiola till the end, and wrote two treatises for her: one, on the priesthood of Aaron and the mystical significance of the sacerdotal vestments, he completed while her ship was being got ready to sail from Jaffa; the other, on the “stations” of the Israelites in the wilderness, was not finished till after her death. It was eventually sent to Oceanus together with an account of Fabiola’s life and death, the one wandering journey being a type or image of the other.
What we know of St Fabiola is mainly from St Jerome, Epist., 77, which is printed in Migne, PL. vol. xxii, cc. 690—698. See also A. Thierry, Saint Jérôme, vol. ii, and F. Cavallera, S. Jérôme, sa vie et son oeuvre, vol. ii, with Leclercq in DAC., vol. vii, cc. 2274—2275 ; and DCB., vol. ii, pp. 442—443.  
A wealthy Roman Patrician of the famous Fabia family. She was for a time a member of St. Jerome's circle but fell away, divorced her husband for his dissolute life, and remarried. On the death of her second husband, she returned to the Church, devoted herself to charitable works and aiding churches, and built the first Christian public hospital in the West, where she personally tended the sick. She visited Jerome at Bethlehem in 395, supported him in his controversy with Patriarch John of Jerusalem, decided not to join Paula's community, and on her return to Rome, continued her charitable work, opening a hospice for poor pilgrims at Porto with St. Pammachius. Jerome wrote two treatises for her and is the source of most of our information about her.

Fabiola of Rome, Widow (AC) Fabiola was divorced, remarried, explained, praised by Saint Jerome. Fabiola was a Roman patrician of the Fabii family who married a very young man of equal rank but of debauched habits. She divorced him. Then she united herself to another man, causing great scandal in Rome, because this was contrary to the ordinances of the Church. Both men died soon after and Fabiola was re-admitted into communion after she performed public penance. Not only did she complete the required penance, Fabiola completely changed her life. She forsook her luxurious lifestyle and devoted her great wealth to good works. With the help of Saint Paula's widowed son-in-law Saint Pammachius, Fabiola founded the first hospital of its kind to care for indigent patients brought in from the streets and alleyways of Rome. Here Fabiola personally tended to the needs of the sick.

In 395, she visited her friend Saint Jerome in the Holy Land with the intention of entering the convent at Bethlehem and sharing in Jerome's biblical work. Whether she returned to Rome because Jerome dissuaded her from staying or because she was temperamentally unsuited for the quiet life, we don't know. Jerome says that her idea of the solitude of the stable of Bethlehem was that it should not be cut off from the crowded inn. Nevertheless, she travelled with Jerome and his companions when they fled to Jaffa to escape the dissension building among the leading Palestinian Christians and the threatened invasion of the Huns.

Upon his advice, she returned to Rome from Jaffa and founded and enthusiastically superintended a hostel for sick and needy pilgrims near the city at Porto. This is another of Fabiola's innovations; one which Jerome says soon became known from Parthia to Britain. Apparently not even this undertaking was enough to sap Fabiola's abundant energies. At the time of her death she was planning a new enterprise that would take her abroad. The veneration in which she is held in Rome was demonstrated by the great multitudes that followed her funeral with chants of Alleluia.

Jerome dedicated to Fabiola a treatise on Aaron's priesthood and another on the 'stations' of the Israelites in the desert. This wandering of the chosen people seemed to him a type of Fabiola's life and death (Attwater, Benedictines, Delaney, Encyclopedia, Farmer).
407 St. Nicarete Virgin care of the poor supported St. John Chrysostom
also called Niceras. A native of Nicomedia, she left her family to go to Constantinople where she devoted herself to the care of the poor.  he took care of John Chrysostom (347 died - Commana in Pontus 14 September 407) when he was ill and shared in his exile from the imperial capital.

Nicarete (Niceras) of Constantinople V (RM). Nicarete resided at Constantinople, where she became a loyal friend of Saint John Chrysostom, whose exile and suffering she shared. Her ears were not torn off by the soldiers who stole the earrings of the Christians of Constantinople whom they were deporting, because she had given away all her jewels long before. (Benedictines, Encyclopedia).

686 Saint Theodore, Archbishop of Constantinople
was a native of Constantinople, led a pious life, was ordained as a priest and served in the cathedral of Hagia Sophia, where he was also the keeper of the sacred vessels.

In the year 676 he was chosen to be Patriarch of Constantinople, although after two years he was deposed because of slander. But truth triumphed, and St Theodore was restored to the Patriarchal throne in 683.
He then guided the Church of Constantinople to the very end of his life around the year 686.

841 St. Theodore bishop of Nicaea and Theophanes (martyred) brothers monks supported icons they worked many healings
 Constantinópoli sanctórum Confessórum Theodóri et Theóphanis fratrum, qui, a puerítia in Palæstinénsi sancti Sabbæ monastério nutríti, cum póstea pro sanctárum Imáginum cultu advérsus Leónem Arménum strénue decertárent, ejus jussu verbéribus affécti sunt et exsílio relegáti.  Sed, eódem Leóne mórtuo, rursus Theóphilo Imperatóri, qui eádem impietáte detinebátur, constánter resisténtes, verbéribus íterum cæsi et in exsílium pulsi sunt, ubi Theodórus in cárcere exspirávit.  Theóphanes vero, pace demum Ecclésiæ réddita, factus est Nicænæ civitátis Epíscopus, et confessiónis glória præclárus quiévit in Dómino.
      At Constantinople, the holy confessors Theodore and Theophanes, brothers, who were brought up from their childhood in the monastery of St. Sabas.  Afterwards, they strove zealously for the veneration of holy images against Leo the Armenian, and at his command they were scourged and banished.  After his death they again firmly opposed Emperor Theophilus, who was imbued with the same impiety, and were scourged a second time and driven into exile, where Theodore died in prison.  Theophanes, after peace had at length been restored to the Church, was made bishop of Nicaea, and there, famous for his glorious witness of the faith, rested in the Lord.

841 and 845 Ss. Theodore and Theophanes
These brothers were natives of Kerak, across the Dead Sea, formerly the land of the Moabites, from whence their parents went and settled at Jerusalem. They both in their youth became monks in the monastery of St Sabas, and by their progress in learning and virtue acquired a high reputation. The patriarch of Jerusalem obliged Theodore to receive priestly orders, and when Leo the Armenian waged war against holy images sent him to exhort the emperor not to disturb the peace of the Church. Leo had Theodore scourged, and banished him with Theophanes to an island at the mouth of the Black Sea, where they suffered much from hunger and cold. But they were not long there before Leo died, when they returned to their monastery at Constantinople. The Emperor Theophilus, a violent iconoclast who ascended the throne in 829, caused the two brothers to be whipped and banished once more.

Two years later they were brought back to Constantinople, and when they still persisted in their refusal to communicate with the iconoclasts, Theophilus com­manded twelve lines of iambic verse, composed for that purpose by a courtier, to be inscribed on their foreheads. The sense of the verses was as follows: “These men have appeared at Jerusalem as vessels full of the iniquity of superstitious error, and were driven thence for their crimes. Having fled to Constantinople, they forsook not their impiety. Wherefore they have been banished from thence and thus stigmatized on their faces.” They were laid upon benches and the letters cut or pricked upon their skin. This barbarity took a long time and was interrupted by the coming on of night, so the torture was completed the next day. Then they were again banished, this time to Apamea in Bithynia, where St Theodore died. Theophilus died about the same time, and St Methodius was made patriarch and restored holy images in 842. St Theophanes was then honoured for his confession of the faith and made bishop of Nicaea that he might more effectually concur in overthrowing a heresy over which he had already triumphed. He wrote a number of hymns, including one on St Theodore, and died on October 11, 845. The Greeks distinguish him as “the Poet”, but both brothers are commonly surnamed “Graptoi”, that is, “the “Written-on”. They are named together in the Roman Martyrology today.

In this case we have a Greek life of Theodore attributed to the Metaphrast. It is printed in Migne, PG., vol. cxvi, pp. 653--684. These confessors are also spoken of by such later historians as (Cedrenus and Zonaras in their account of the reign of the Emperor Theophilus. Some measure of cultus seems to be attested by the fact that a notice of Theodore and Theo­phanes appears in the Constantinople Synaxary (ed. Delehaye, pp. 130—131), but the day there assigned to their memory is October 11, though in other texts a mention occurs on December 28.  

Two brothers who endured persecution because of their resistance to the Iconoclasts of the Byzantine Empire. Both were monks in the monastery of St. Sabbas in Jerusalem at the time when Byzantine officials demanded that the icons be destroyed. When the brothers opposed the action, they were beaten and had their faces cruelly disfigured by having verses carved into them.
Theodore died in prison. Theophanes may have survived him long enough to become bishop of Nicaea.

Saint Theodore the Confessor, and his brother Theophanes (October 11) were born in Jerusalem of Christian parents. From early childhood Theodore shunned childish amusements and loved to attend church services. With his younger brother Theophanes (October 11), he was sent to the Lavra of St Sava to be educated by a pious priest. Both brothers became monks, and St Theodore was ordained to the holy priesthood.

The iconoclast emperor Leo V the Armenian (813-820) expelled and replaced the pious ruler Michael I Rhangabe (811-813). In the beginning, Leo concealed his heretical views, but later declared himself an iconoclast. The Patriarch of Jerusalem sent the two brothers to Constantinople to defend the holy icons. Theodore refuted Leo's arguments, proving the falseness of his beliefs. Leo ordered that both brothers be beaten mercilessly, and then had them sent into exile, forbidding anyone to help them in any way. 

Under the subsequent emperors, Michael II (820-829), and particularly under the iconoclast Theophilus (829-842), both brothers returned from exile. Again they were urged to accept iconoclasm, but they bravely endured all the tortures. They were sent into exile once more, but later returned. This time they were subjected to fierce torture, and finally, their faces were branded with the verses of a poem which mocked the holy confessors. Therefore, the brothers were called "the Branded."

The city prefect asked St Theodore to take communion with the iconoclasts just once, promising him freedom if he did. But the holy martyr replied, "Your proposal is the same as saying: 'Let me cut off your head once, and then you may go wherever you wish.'"

After torture the holy brothers were banished to Apamea in Bithynia, where St Theodore died around the year 840. St Theophanes survived until the end of the iconoclast heresy, and died as Bishop of Nicea. St Theophanes was author of many writings in defense of Orthodoxy. The relics of St Theodore were transferred to Chalcedon, where they worked many healings.

Theodore M and Theophanes B (RM) Born in Kerak, Moab (Trans-Jordan), c. 775 and c. 778; died at Apamea, Bithynia, c. 841 and at Nicaea, October 11, 845, respectively. Theodore and Theophanes were blood and spiritual brothers, who were raised in Jerusalem. They both became monks of St. Sabas's laura in Jerusalem, where they were admired for their intelligence and model behavior. For their vehement defense of the veneration of sacred images, the two were cruelly persecuted by the Byzantine emperors. At the urging of the patriarch of Jerusalem Theodore was ordained a priest. The patriarch then sent him as emissary to the court in Constantinople to persuade Emperor Leo the Armenian not to interfere in ecclesiastical matters. Leo ordered the scourging of Theodore and exiled the two brothers on an island in the Black Sea, where they suffered hunger and harsh weather. They returned to their monastery in 820, after Leo's death.

In 829, Emperor Theophilus took power, denounced the use of images, and tortured and banished the brothers. They were recalled to Constantinople in 831. After they refused discussions with the iconoclasts, a 12-line iambic verse was cut in the flesh of their faces (and for this reason they are called Graptoi or "the written upon"). The verse read: "These men have appeared at Jerusalem as vessels full of the iniquity of superstitious error, and were driven thence for their crimes. Having fled to Constantinople, they forsook not their impiety. Wherefore they have been banished from thence and thus stigmatized on their faces." The operation took two days to cut into the flesh of their foreheads.

They were then banished to Apamea, Bithynia. Theodore died first, while he was in prison, of the terrible sufferings he endured. Theophanes, according to the Roman Martyrology, survived to become bishop of Nicaea and a poet. He wrote several hymns, including one about his brother (Benedictines, Delaney, White).
1133 Blessed Hesso (Esso) of Beinwil, OSB, Abbot (AC)
Hesso was a disciple of Saint William of Hirschau and served in that Benedictine monastery as a monk and procurator.
In 1085, he was sent as the first abbot to the monastery of Beinwil, Switzerland (Benedictines, Encyclopedia).

1156 Blessed Walto of Wessobrünn his goodness and ability to work miracles OSB, Abbot (AC)
(also known as Balto)
Walto, abbot of Wessobrünn in Bavaria, attracted many friends and benefactors to the abbey because of his goodness and ability to work miracles (Benedictines, Encyclopedia).

1273 Blessed Adelheidis of Tennenbach, OSB Cist. V (PC)
Born into the aristocratic family of Thöningen, Adelheidis sanctified herself as a recluse of the Cistercian abbey of Tennenbach (Benedictines).

1348 Blessed Bonaventure Tolomei died while tending to his plague-stricken fellow citizen OP (PC)
Born in Siena, Tuscany, Italy; died there in 1348. As a child, Bonaventure was favored with divine charismata, but like so many young adults he forgot God's love. For four years he abandoned himself to a life of impurity and sacrilege. Eventually he repented and did penance by visiting on foot all the important shrines.
Thereafter, he returned to Siena and entered the Dominican order. He died while tending to his plague-stricken fellow citizens (Benedictines).

1539 John Stone 1/40 Martyrs of England and Wales, OSA Priest M (RM)
Born in Canterbury, England; died there 1538-1539; canonized by Pope Paul VI in 1970 as one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales; feast day formerly May 12.
John was an Augustinian friar of the Canterbury community. He held a doctorate in Divinity and was highly respected for his erudition. He served as a professor and prior at Droitwich for a time but was back at Canterbury when Henry VIII began his divorce proceedings. John denounced the claims of Henry to ecclesiastical supremacy from the pulpit, was arrested in December 1538, imprisoned at Westgate, and when he reiterated his condemnation of the Act of Supremacy, was hanged, drawn, and quartered at Canterbury before December 1539 (Benedictines, Delaney).

1571 Johannes Kepler, born DECEMBER 27: In book five of The Harmonies of the World (1619), Kepler wrote:
"O, Almighty God, I am thinking Thy thoughts after Thee!...The die is cast; the book is written, to be read either now or by posterity, I care not which. It may be well to wait a century for a reader, as God has waited six thousand years for an observer."

He advanced Copernicus' heliocentric theory of the solar system, with the planets revolving around the sun instead of the earth.
He discovered the laws governing planetary motion and pioneered the discipline of celestial mechanics, known as Kepler's Laws, which aided Newton in his formulation of the theory of gravitation.
His publishing of the ephemeris tables, necessary for plotting star movement, contributed to the theory of calculus.

In book five of The Harmonies of the World (1619), Kepler wrote:
"O, Almighty God, I am thinking Thy thoughts after Thee!...The die is cast; the book is written, to be read either now or by posterity, I care not which. It may be well to wait a century for a reader, as God has waited six thousand years for an observer."

In comparing celestial orbits of the planets with polyphonic harmonies in music, Kepler wrote in The Harmonies of the Worlds (1619):
"Holy Father, keep us safe in the concord of our love for one another, that we may be one just as Thou art with Thy Son, Our Lord, and with the Holy Ghost, and just as through the sweetest bonds of harmonies Thou hast made all Thy works one, and that from the bringing of Thy people into concord, the body of Thy Church may be built up in the Earth, as Thou didst erect the heavens themselves out of harmonies."
 
In the conclusion of his treatise, The Harmonies of the Worlds (1619), Johannes Kepler wrote:
"I thank Thee, my Creator and Lord, that Thou hast given me this joy in Thy creation, this delight in the works of Thy hands; I have shown the excellency of Thy works unto man, so far as my finite mind was able to comprehend Thine infinity; if I have said aught of Thy glory, graciously forgive it."



THE PSALTER OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY PSALM 219

I will love thee, O Lady of heaven and earth: and I will call upon thy name in the nations.

Give praise to her, ye who are troubled in heart: and she will strengthen you against your enemies.

Give to us, O Lady, the grace of thy breasts:
from the dropping milk of thy sweetness refresh the inmost souls of thy children.

Honor her, O all ye religious: for she is your helper and your special advocate.

Be thou our refreshment, glorious Mother of Christ: for thou art the admirable foundation of the religious life.


Let every spirit praise Our Lady


For thy spirit is kind: thy grace fills the whole world.

Thunder, ye heavens, from above, and give praise to her: glorify her, ye earth, with all the dwellers therein.


Rejoice, ye Heavens, and be glad, O Earth: because Mary will console her servants and will have mercy on her poor.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost as it was in the beginning and will always be.

God loves variety. He doesn't mass-produce his saints. Every saint is unique, for each is the result of a new idea. 
As the liturgy says: Non est inventus similis illis--there are no two exactly alike. It is we with our lack of imagination, who paint the same haloes on all the saints. Dear Lord, grant us a spirit that is not bound by our own ideas and preferences. 
Grant that we may be able to appreciate in others what we lack in ourselves.
O Lord, grant that we may understand that every saint must be a unique praise of Your glory. Catholic saints are holy people and human people who lived extraordinary lives.  Each saint the Church honors responded to God's invitation to use his or her unique gifts.   God calls each one of us to be a saint in order to get into heavenonly saints are allowed into heaven.
The more "extravagant" graces are bestowed NOT for the benefit of the recipients so much as FOR the benefit of others.
There are over 10,000 named saints beati  from history
 and Roman Martyology Orthodox sources

Patron_Saints.html  Widowed_Saints htmIndulgences The Catholic Church in China
LINKS: Marian Shrines  
India Marian Shrine Lourdes of the East   Lourdes 1858  China Marian shrines 1995
Kenya national Marian shrine  Loreto, Italy  Marian Apparitions (over 2000Quang Tri Vietnam La Vang 1798
 
Links to Related MarianWebsites  Angels and Archangels  Saints Visions of Heaven and Hell

Widowed Saints  html
Doctors_of_the_Church   Acts_Of_The_Apostles  Roman Catholic Popes  Purgatory  UniateChalcedon

Mary the Mother of Jesus Miracles_BLay Saints  Miraculous_IconMiraculous_Medal_Novena Patron Saints
Miracles by Century 100   200   300   400   500   600   700    800   900   1000    1100   1200   1300   1400  1500  1600  1700  1800  1900 2000
Miracles 100   200   300   400   500   600   700    800   900   1000  
 
1100   1200   1300   1400  1500  1600  1700  1800   1900 Lay Saints

The great psalm of the Passion, Chapter 22, whose first verse “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”
Jesus pronounced on the cross, ended with the vision: “All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord;
and all the families of the nations shall worship before him
For kingship belongs to the LORD, the ruler over the nations. All who sleep in the earth will bow low before God; All who have gone down into the dust will kneel in homage. And I will live for the LORD; my descendants will serve you. The generation to come will be told of the Lord, that they may proclaim to a people yet unborn the deliverance you have brought.
Pope Benedict XVI to The Catholic Church In China {whole article here} 2000 years of the Catholic Church in China
The saints “a cloud of witnesses over our head”, showing us life of Christian perfection is possible.

Join us on CatholicVote.org. Be part of a new movement committed to using powerful media projects to create a Culture of Life. We can help shape the movement and have a voice in its future. Check it out at www.CatholicVote.org

Saint Frances Xavier Seelos  Practical Guide to Holiness
1. Go to Mass with deepest devotion. 2. Spend a half hour to reflect upon your main failing & make resolutions to avoid it.
3. Do daily spiritual reading for at least 15 minutes, if a half hour is not possible.  4. Say the rosary every day.
5. Also daily, if at all possible, visit the Blessed Sacrament; toward evening, meditate on the Passion of Christ for a half hour, 6.  Conclude the day with evening prayer & an examination of conscience over all the faults & sins of the day.
7.  Every month make a review of the month in confession.
8. Choose a special patron every month & imitate that patron in some special virtue.
9. Precede every great feast with a novena that is nine days of devotion. 10. Try to begin & end every activity with a Hail Mary

My God, I believe, I adore, I trust and I love Thee.  I beg pardon for those who do not believe, do not adore, do not
O most Holy trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, I adore Thee profoundly.  I offer Thee the most precious Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, present in all the Tabernacles of the world, in reparation for the outrages, sacrileges and indifference by which He is offended, and by the infite merits of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary.  I beg the conversion of poor sinners,  Fatima Prayer, Angel of Peace
The voice of the Father is heard, the Son enters the water, and the Holy Spirit appears in the form of a dove.
THE spirit and example of the world imperceptibly instil the error into the minds of many that there is a kind of middle way of going to Heaven; and so, because the world does not live up to the gospel, they bring the gospel down to the level of the world. It is not by this example that we are to measure the Christian rule, but words and life of Christ. All His followers are commanded to labour to become perfect even as our heavenly Father is perfect, and to bear His image in our hearts that we may be His children. We are obliged by the gospel to die to ourselves by fighting self-love in our hearts, by the mastery of our passions, by taking on the spirit of our Lord.
   These are the conditions under which Christ makes His promises and numbers us among His children, as is manifest from His words which the apostles have left us in their inspired writings. Here is no distinction made or foreseen between the apostles or clergy or religious and secular persons. The former, indeed, take upon themselves certain stricter obligations, as a means of accomplishing these ends more perfectly; but the law of holiness and of disengagement of the heart from the world is general and binds all the followers of Christ.
God loves variety. He doesn't mass-produce his saints. Every saint is unique each the result of a new idea.
As the liturgy says: Non est inventus similis illis--there are no two exactly alike.
It is we with our lack of imagination, who paint the same haloes on all the saints.

Dear Lord, grant us a spirit not bound by our own ideas and preferences.
 
Grant that we may be able to appreciate in others what we lack in ourselves.

O Lord, grant that we may understand that every saint must be a unique praise of Your glory.
 
Catholic saints are holy people and human people who lived extraordinary lives.
Each saint the Church honors responded to God's invitation to use his or her unique gifts.
The 15 Promises of the Virgin Mary to those who recite the Rosary ) Revealed to St. Dominic and Blessed Alan)
1.    Whoever shall faithfully serve me by the recitation of the Rosary, shall receive signal graces. 2.    I promise my special protection and the greatest graces to all those who shall recite the Rosary. 3.    The Rosary shall be a powerful armor against hell, it will destroy vice, decrease sin, and defeat heresies. 4.    It will cause virtue and good works to flourish; it will obtain for souls the abundant mercy of God; it will withdraw the hearts of people from the love of the world and its vanities, and will lift them to the desire of eternal things.  Oh, that soul would sanctify them by this means.  5.    The soul that recommends itself to me by the recitation of the Rosary shall not perish. 6.    Whoever shall recite the Rosary devoutly, applying themselves to the consideration of its Sacred Mysteries shall never be conquered by misfortune.  God will not chastise them in His justice, they shall not perish by an unprovided death; if they be just, they shall remain in the grace of God, and become worthy of eternal life. 7.    Whoever shall have a true devotion for the Rosary shall not die without the Sacraments of the Church. 8.    Those who are faithful to recite the Rosary shall have during their life and at their death the light of God and the plentitude of His graces; at the moment of death they shall participate in the merits of the Saints in Paradise. 9.    I shall deliver from purgatory those who have been devoted to the Rosary. 10.    The faithful children of the Rosary shall merit a high degree of glory in Heaven.  11.    You shall obtain all you ask of me by the recitation of the Rosary. 12.    I shall aid all those who propagate the Holy Rosary in their necessities. 13.    I have obtained from my Divine Son that all the advocates of the Rosary shall have for intercessors the entire celestial court during their life and at the hour of death. 14.    All who recite the Rosary are my children, and brothers and sisters of my only Son, Jesus Christ. 15.    Devotion to my Rosary is a great sign of predestination.
His Holiness Aram I, current (2013) Catholicos of Cilicia of Armenians, whose See is located in Lebanese town of Antelias. The Catholicosate was founded in Sis, capital of Cilicia, in the year 1441 following the move of the Catholicosate of All Armenians back to its original See of Etchmiadzin in Armenia. The Catholicosate of Cilicia enjoyed local jurisdiction, though spiritually subject to the authority of Etchmiadzin. In 1921 the See was transferred to Aleppo in Syria, and in 1930 to Antelias.
Its jurisdiction currently extends to Syria, Cyprus, Iran and Greece.
Aramaic dialect of Edessa, now known as Syriac
The exact date of the introduction of Christianity into Edessa {Armenian Ourhaï in Arabic Er Roha, commonly Orfa or Urfa, its present name} is not known. It is certain, however, that the Christian community was at first made up from the Jewish population of the city. According to an ancient legend, King Abgar V, Ushana, was converted by Addai, who was one of the seventy-two disciples. In fact, however, the first King of Edessa to embrace the Christian Faith was Abgar IX (c. 206) becoming official kingdom religion.
Christian council held at Edessa early as 197 (Eusebius, Hist. Ecc7V,xxiii).
In 201 the city was devastated by a great flood, and the Christian church was destroyed (“Chronicon Edessenum”, ad. an. 201).
In 232 the relics of the Apostle St. Thomas were brought from India, on which occasion his Syriac Acts were written.

Under Roman domination martyrs suffered at Edessa: Sts. Scharbîl and Barsamya, under Decius; Sts. Gûrja, Schâmôna, Habib, and others under Diocletian.
 
In the meanwhile Christian priests from Edessa evangelized Eastern Mesopotamia and Persia, established the first Churches in the kingdom of the Sassanides.  Atillâtiâ, Bishop of Edessa, assisted at the Council of Nicæa (325). The “Peregrinatio Silviæ” (or Etheriæ) (ed. Gamurrini, Rome, 1887, 62 sqq.) gives an account of the many sanctuaries at Edessa about 388.
Although Hebrew had been the language of the ancient Israelite kingdom, after their return from Exile the Jews turned more and more to Aramaic, using it for parts of the books of Ezra and Daniel in the Bible. By the time of Jesus, Aramaic was the main language of Palestine, and quite a number of texts from the Dead Sea Scrolls are also written in Aramaic.
Aramaic continued to be an important language for Jews, alongside Hebrew, and parts of the Talmud are written in it.
After Arab conquests of the seventh century, Arabic quickly replaced Aramaic as the main language of those who converted to Islam, although in out of the way places, Aramaic continued as a vernacular language of Muslims.
Aramaic, however, enjoyed its greatest success in Christianity. Although the New Testament wins written in Greek, Christianity had come into existence in an Aramaic-speaking milieu, and it was the Aramaic dialect of Edessa, now known as Syriac, that became the literary language of a large number of Christians living in the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire and in the Persian Empire, further east. Over the course of the centuries the influence of the Syriac Churches spread eastwards to China (in Xian, in western China, a Chinese-Syriac inscription dated 781 is still to be seen); to southern India where the state of Kerala can boast more Christians of Syriac liturgical tradition than anywhere else in the world.

680 Shiite saint Imam Hussein, grandson of Islam's Prophet Muhammad Known as Ashoura and observed by Shiites across the world, the 10th day of the lunar Muslim month of Muharram: the anniversary of the 7th century death in battle of one of Shiite Islam's most beloved saints.  Imam Hussein died in the 680 A.D. battle fought on the plains outside Karbala, a city in modern Iraq that's home to the saint's shrine.  The battle over a dispute about the leadership of the Muslim faith following Muhammad's death in 632 A.D. It is the defining event in Islam's split into Sunni and Shiite branches.  The occasion is the source of an enduring moral lesson. "He sacrificed his blood to teach us not to give in to corruption, coercion, or use of force and to seek honor and justice."  According to Shiite beliefs, Hussein and companions were denied water by enemies who controlled the nearby Euphrates.  Streets get partially covered with blood from slaughter of hundreds of cows and sheep. Volunteers cook the meat and feed it to the poor.  Hussein's martyrdom recounted through a rich body of prose, poetry and song remains an inspirational example of sacrifice to many Shiites, 10 percent of the world's estimated 1.3 billion Muslims.
Meeting of the Saints  walis (saints of Allah)
Great men covet to embrace martyrdom for a cause and principle.
So was the case with Hazrat Ali. He could have made a compromise with the evil forces of his time and, as a result, could have led a very comfortable, easy and luxurious life.  But he was not a person who would succumb to such temptations. His upbringing, his education and his training in the lap of the holy Prophet made him refuse such an offer.
Rabia Al-Basri (717–801 C.E.) She was first to set forth the doctrine of mystical love and who is widely considered to be the most important of the early Sufi poets. An elderly Shia pointed out that during his pre-Partition childhood it was quite common to find pictures and portraits of Shia icons in Imambaras across the country.
Shah Abdul Latif: The Exalted Sufi Master born 1690 in a Syed family; died 1754. In ancient times, Sindh housed the exemplary Indus Valley Civilisation with Moenjo Daro as its capital, and now, it is the land of a culture which evolved from the teachings of eminent Sufi saints. Pakistan is home to the mortal remains of many Sufi saints, the exalted among them being Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai, a practitioner of the real Islam, philosopher, poet, musicologist and preacher. He presented his teaching through poetry and music - both instruments sublime - and commands a very large following, not only among Muslims but also among Hindus and Christians. Sindh culture: The Shah is synonymous with Sindh. He is the very fountainhead of Sindh's culture. His message remains as fresh as that of any present day poet, and the people of Sindh find solace from his writings. He did indeed think for Sindh. One of his prayers, in exquisite Sindhi, translates thus: “Oh God, may ever You on Sindh bestow abundance rare! Beloved! All the world let share Thy grace, and fruitful be.”
Shia Ali al-Hadi, died 868 and son Hassan al-Askari 874. These saints are the 10th and 11th of Shia's 12 most revered Imams. Baba Farid Sufi 1398 miracle, Qutbuddin Bakhtiar Kaki renowned Muslim Sufi saint scholar miracles 569 A.H. [1173 C.E.] hermit gave to poor, Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti greatest mystic of his time born 533 Hijri (1138-39 A.D.), Hazrat Ghuas-e Azam, Hazrat Bu Ali Sharif, and Hazrat Nizamuddin Aulia Sufi Saint Hazrath Khwaja Syed Mohammed Badshah Quadri Chisty Yamani Quadeer (RA)
1236-1325 welcomed people of all faiths & all walks of life.
801 Rabi'a al-'Adawiyya Sufi One of the most famous Islamic mystics
(b. 717). This 8th century saint was an early Sufi who had a profound influence on later Sufis, who in turn deeply influenced the European mystical love and troubadour traditions.  Rabi'a was a woman of Basra, a seaport in southern Iraq.  She was born around 717 and died in 801 (185-186).  Her biographer, the great medieval poet Attar, tells us that she was "on fire with love and longing" and that men accepted her "as a second spotless Mary" (186).  She was, he continues, “an unquestioned authority to her contemporaries" (218).
Rabi'a began her ascetic life in a small desert cell near Basra, where she lost herself in prayer and went straight to God for teaching.  As far as is known, she never studied under any master or spiritual director.  She was one of the first of the Sufis to teach that Love alone was the guide on the mystic path (222).  A later Sufi taught that there were two classes of "true believers": one class sought a master as an intermediary between them and God -- unless they could see the footsteps of the Prophet on the path before them, they would not accept the path as valid.  The second class “...did not look before them for the footprint of any of God's creatures, for they had removed all thought of what He had created from their hearts, and concerned themselves solely with God. (218)
Rabi'a was of this second kind.  She felt no reverence even for the House of God in Mecca:  "It is the Lord of the house Whom I need; what have I to do with the house?" (219) One lovely spring morning a friend asked her to come outside to see the works of God.  She replied, "Come you inside that you may behold their Maker.  Contemplation of the Maker has turned me aside from what He has made" (219).  During an illness, a friend asked this woman if she desired anything.
"...[H]ow can you ask me such a question as 'What do I desire?'  I swear by the glory of God that for twelve years I have desired fresh dates, and you know that in Basra dates are plentiful, and I have not yet tasted them.  I am a servant (of God), and what has a servant to do with desire?" (162)
When a male friend once suggested she should pray for relief from a debilitating illness, she said,
"O Sufyan, do you not know Who it is that wills this suffering for me?  Is it not God Who wills it?  When you know this, why do you bid me ask for what is contrary to His will?  It is not  well to oppose one's Beloved." (221)
She was an ascetic.  It was her custom to pray all night, sleep briefly just before dawn, and then rise again just as dawn "tinged the sky with gold" (187).  She lived in celibacy and poverty, having renounced the world.  A friend visited her in old age and found that all she owned were a reed mat, screen, a pottery jug, and a bed of felt which doubled as her prayer-rug (186), for where she prayed all night, she also slept briefly in the pre-dawn chill.  Once her friends offered to get her a servant; she replied,
"I should be ashamed to ask for the things of this world from Him to Whom the world belongs, and how should I ask for them from those to whom it does not belong?"  (186-7)
A wealthy merchant once wanted to give her a purse of gold.  She refused it, saying that God, who sustains even those who dishonor Him, would surely sustain her, "whose soul is overflowing with love" for Him.  And she added an ethical concern as well:
"...How should I take the wealth of someone of whom I do not know whether he acquired it lawfully or not?" (187)
She taught that repentance was a gift from God because no one could repent unless God had already accepted him and given him this gift of repentance.  She taught that sinners must fear the punishment they deserved for their sins, but she also offered such sinners far more hope of Paradise than most other ascetics did.  For herself, she held to a higher ideal, worshipping God neither from fear of Hell nor from hope of Paradise, for she saw such self-interest as unworthy of God's servants; emotions like fear and hope were like veils -- i.e., hindrances to the vision of God Himself.  The story is told that once a number of Sufis saw her hurrying on her way with water in one hand and a burning torch in the other.  When they asked her to explain, she said:
"I am going to light a fire in Paradise and to pour water on to Hell, so that both veils may vanish altogether from before the pilgrims and their purpose may be sure..." (187-188)
She was once asked where she came from.  "From that other world," she said.  "And where are you going?" she was asked.  "To that other world," she replied (219).  She taught that the spirit originated with God in "that other world" and had to return to Him in the end.  Yet if the soul were sufficiently purified, even on earth, it could look upon God unveiled in all His glory and unite with him in love.  In this quest, logic and reason were powerless.  Instead, she speaks of the "eye" of her heart which alone could apprehend Him and His mysteries (220).
Above all, she was a lover, a bhakti, like one of Krishna’s Goptis in the Hindu tradition.  Her hours of prayer were not so much devoted to intercession as to communion with her Beloved.  Through this communion, she could discover His will for her.  Many of her prayers have come down to us:
       "I have made Thee the Companion of my heart,
        But my body is available for those who seek its company,
        And my body is friendly towards its guests,
        But the Beloved of my heart is the Guest of my soul."  [224]

To Save A Life is Earthly; Saving A Soul is Eternal Donation by mail, please send check or money order to:
Eternal Word Television Network 5817 Old Leeds Rd. Irondale, AL 35210  USA
  Catholic Television Network  Supported entirely by donations from viewers  help  spread the Eternal Word, online Here
Mother Angelica saving souls is this beautiful womans journey  Shrine_of_The_Most_Blessed_Sacrament
Colombia was among the countries Mother Angelica visited. 
In Bogotá, a Salesian priest - Father Juan Pablo Rodriguez - brought Mother and the nuns to the Sanctuary of the Divine Infant Jesus to attend Mass.  After Mass, Father Juan Pablo took them into a small Shrine which housed the miraculous statue of the Child Jesus. Mother Angelica stood praying at the side of the statue when suddenly the miraculous image came alive and turned towards her.  Then the Child Jesus spoke with the voice of a young boy:  “Build Me a Temple and I will help those who help you.” 

Thus began a great adventure that would eventually result in the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament, a Temple dedicated to the Divine Child Jesus, a place of refuge for all. Use this link to read a remarkable story about
The Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament
Father Reardon, Editor of The Catholic Bulletin for 14 years Lover of the poor; A very Holy Man of God.
Monsignor Reardon Protonotarius Apostolicus
 
Pastor 42 years BASILICA OF SAINT MARY Minneapolis MN
America's First Basilica Largest Nave in the World
August 7, 1907-ground broke for the foundation
by Archbishop Ireland-laying cornerstone May 31, 1908
James M. Reardon Publication History of Basilica of Saint Mary 1600-1932
James M. Reardon Publication  History of the Basilica of Saint Mary 1955 {update}

Brief History of our Beloved Holy Priest Here and his published books of Catholic History in North America
Reardon, J.M. Archbishop Ireland; Prelate, Patriot, Publicist, 1838-1918.
A Memoir (St. Paul; 1919); George Anthony Belcourt Pioneer Catholic Missionary of the Northwest 1803-1874 (1955);
The Catholic Church IN THE DIOCESE OF ST. PAUL from earliest origin to centennial achievement
1362-1950 (1952);

The Church of Saint Mary of Saint Paul 1875-1922;
  (1932)
The Vikings in the American Heartland;
The Catholic Total Abstinence Society in Minnesota;
James Michael Reardon Born in Nova Scotia, 1872;  Priest, ordained by Bishop Ireland;
Member -- St. Paul Seminary faculty.
Affiliations and Indulgence Litany of Loretto in Stained glass windows here.  Nave Sacristy and Residence Here
Sanctuary
spaces between them filled with grilles of hand-forged wrought iron the
life of our Blessed Lady After the crucifixon
Apostle statues Replicas of those in St John Lateran--Christendom's earliest Basilica.
Ordered by Rome's first Christian Emperor, Constantine the Great, Popes' cathedral and official residence first millennium of Christian history.

The only replicas ever made:  in order from west to east {1932}.
Every Christian must be a living book wherein one can read the teaching of the gospel
 
It Makes No Sense
Not To Believe In GOD
THE BLESSED MOTHER AND ISLAM By Father John Corapi
  June 19, Trinity Sunday, 1991: Ordained Catholic Priest under Pope John Paul II;
then 2,000,000 miles delivering the Gospel to millions, and continues to do so.
By Father John Corapi
THE BLESSED MOTHER AND ISLAM By Father John Corapi
  June 19, Trinity Sunday, 1991: Ordained Catholic Priest under Pope John Paul II;
then 2,000,000 miles delivering the Gospel to millions, and continues to do so.
By Father John Corapi
Among the most important titles we have in the Catholic Church for the Blessed Virgin Mary are Our Lady of Victory and Our Lady of the Rosary. These titles can be traced back to one of the most decisive times in the history of the world and Christendom. The Battle of Lepanto took place on October 7 (date of feast of Our Lady of Rosary), 1571. This proved to be the most crucial battle for the Christian forces against the radical Muslim navy of Turkey. Pope Pius V led a procession around St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City praying the Rosary. He showed true pastoral leadership in recognizing the danger posed to Christendom by the radical Muslim forces, and in using the means necessary to defeat it. Spiritual battles require spiritual weapons, and this more than anything was a battle that had its origins in the spiritual order—a true battle between good and evil.

Today we have a similar spiritual battle in progress—a battle between the forces of good and evil, light and darkness, truth and lies, life and death. If we do not soon stop the genocide of abortion in the United States, we shall run the course of all those that prove by their actions that they are enemies of God—total collapse, economic, social, and national. The moral demise of a nation results in the ultimate demise of a nation. God is not a disinterested spectator to the affairs of man. Life begins at conception. This is an unalterable formal teaching of the Catholic Church. If you do not accept this you are a heretic in plain English. A single abortion is homicide. The more than 48,000,000 abortions since Roe v. Wade in the United States constitute genocide by definition. The group singled out for death—unwanted, unborn children.

No other issue, not all other issues taken together, can constitute a proportionate reason for voting for candidates that intend to preserve and defend this holocaust of innocent human life that is abortion.

As we watch the spectacle of the world seeming to self-destruct before our eyes, we can’t help but be saddened and even frightened by so much evil run rampant. Iraq, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Somalia, North Korea—It is all a disaster of epic proportions displayed in living color on our television screens.  These are not ordinary times and this is not business as usual. We are at a crossroads in human history and the time for Catholics and all Christians to act is now. All evil can ultimately be traced to its origin, which is moral evil. All of the political action, peace talks, international peacekeeping forces, etc. will avail nothing if the underlying sickness is not addressed. This is sin. One person at a time hearts and minds must be moved from evil to good, from lies to truth, from violence to peace.
Islam, an Arabic word that has often been defined as “to make peace,” seems like a living contradiction today. Islam is a religion of peace.  As we celebrate the birthday of Our Lady, I am proposing that each one of us pray the Rosary for peace. Prayer is what must precede all other activity if that activity is to have any chance of success. Pray for peace, pray the Rosary every day without fail.  There is a great love for Mary among Muslim people. It is not a coincidence that a little village named Fatima is where God chose to have His Mother appear in the twentieth century. Our Lady’s name appears no less than thirty times in the Koran. No other woman’s name is mentioned, not even that of Mohammed’s daughter, Fatima. In the Koran Our Lady is described as “Virgin, ever Virgin.”

Archbishop Fulton Sheen prophetically spoke of the resurgence of Islam in our day. He said it would be through the Blessed Virgin Mary that Islam would be converted. We must pray for this to happen quickly if we are to avert a horrible time of suffering for this poor, sinful world. Turn to our Mother in this time of great peril. Pray the Rosary every day. Then, and only then will there be peace, when the hearts and minds of men are changed from the inside.
Talk is weak. Prayer is strong. Pray!  God bless you, Father John Corapi

Father Corapi's Biography

Father John Corapi is what has commonly been called a late vocation. In other words, he came to the priesthood other than a young man. He was 44 years old when he was ordained. From small town boy to the Vietnam era US Army, from successful businessman in Las Vegas and Hollywood to drug addicted and homeless, to religious life and ordination to the priesthood by Pope John Paul II, to a life as a preacher of the Gospel who has reached millions with the simple message that God's Name is Mercy!

Father Corapi's academic credentials are quite extensive. He received a Bachelor of Business Administration degree from Pace University in the seventies. Then as an older man returned to the university classrooms in preparation for his life as a priest and preacher. He received all of his academic credentials for the Church with honors: a Masters degree in Sacred Scripture from Holy Apostles Seminary and Bachelor, Licentiate, and Doctorate degrees in dogmatic theology from the University of Navarre in Spain.

Father John Corapi goes to the heart of the contemporary world's many woes and wars, whether the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Somalia, or the Congo, or the natural disasters that seem to be increasing every year, the moral and spiritual war is at the basis of everything. “Our battle is not against human forces,” St. Paul asserts, “but against principalities and powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness...” (Ephesians 6:12). 
The “War to end all wars” is the moral and spiritual combat that rages in the hearts and minds of human beings. The outcome of that  unseen fight largely determines how the battle in the realm of the seen unfolds.  The title talk, “With the Moon Under Her Feet,” is taken from the twelfth chapter of the Book of Revelation, and deals with the current threat to the world from radical Islam, and the Blessed Virgin Mary's role in the ultimate victory that will result in the conversion of Islam. Few Catholics are aware of the connection between Islam, Fatima, and Guadalupe. Presented in Father Corapi's straight-forward style, you will be both inspired and educated by him.

About Father John Corapi.
Father Corapi is a Catholic priest .
The pillars of father's preaching are basically:
Love for and a relationship with the Blessed Virgin Mary 
Leading a vibrant and loving relationship with Jesus Christ
Great love and reverence for the Most Holy Eucharist from Holy Mass to adoration of the Blessed Sacrament
An uncompromising love for and obedience to the Holy Father and the teaching of the Magisterium of the Church


God Bless you on your journey Father John Corapi


Records on life of Father Flanagan, founder of Boys Town, presented at Vatican
Jul 23, 2019 - 03:01 am .- The cause for canonization of Servant of God Edward Flanagan, the priest who founded Nebraska's Boys Town community for orphans and other boys, advanced Monday with the presentation of a summary of records on his life.

Archbishop Fulton Sheen to be beatified
Jul 6, 2019 - 04:00 am .- Pope Francis approved the miracle attributed to Archbishop Fulton Sheen Friday, making possible the American television catechist's beatification.

Brooklyn diocese advances sainthood cause of local priest
Jun 25, 2019 - 03:01 am .- The Bishop of Brooklyn accepted last week the findings of a nine-year diocesan investigation into the life of Monsignor Bernard John Quinn, known for fighting bigotry and serving the African American population, as part of his cause for canonization.

Fr. Augustus Tolton, former African American slave, advances toward sainthood
Jun 12, 2019 - 05:03 am .- Fr. Augustus Tolton advanced along the path to sainthood Wednesday, making the runaway slave-turned-priest one step closer to being the first black American saint.

Pope Francis will beatify these martyred Greek-Catholic bishops in Romania
May 30, 2019 - 03:01 pm .- On Sunday in Blaj, Pope Francis will beatify seven Greek-Catholic bishops of Romania who were killed by the communist regime between 1950 and 1970.
 
Woman who served Brazil’s poorest to be canonized
May 14, 2019 - 06:53 am .- Pope Francis Tuesday gave his approval for eight sainthood causes to proceed, including that of Bl. Dulce Lopes Pontes, a 20th-century religious sister who served Brazil’s poor.

Seven 20th-century Romanian bishops declared martyrs
Mar 19, 2019 - 12:01 pm .- Pope Francis declared Tuesday the martyrdom of seven Greek-Catholic bishops killed by the communist regime in Romania in the mid-20th century.

Pope advances sainthood causes of 17 women
Jan 15, 2019 - 11:12 am .- Pope Francis approved Tuesday the next step in the canonization causes of 17 women from four countries, including the martyrdom of 14 religious sisters killed in Spain at the start of the Spanish Civil War.
 
Nineteen Algerian martyrs beatified
Dec 10, 2018 - 03:08 pm .- Bishop Pierre Claverie and his 18 companions, who were martyred in Algeria between 1994 and 1996, were beatified Saturday during a Mass in Oran.

The Algerian martyrs shed their blood for Christ, pope says
Dec 7, 2018 - 10:02 am .- Ahead of the beatification Saturday of Bishop Pierre Claverie and his 18 companions, who were martyred in Algeria between 1994 and 1996, Pope Francis said martyrs have a special place in the Church.
Algerian martyrs are models for the Church, archbishop says
Nov 16, 2018 - 03:01 am .- Archbishop Paul Desfarges of Algiers has said that Bishop Pierre Claverie and his 18 companions, who were martyred in Algeria between 1994 and 1996, are “models for our lives as disciples today and tomorrow.”
 
Francesco Spinelli to be canonized after healing of a newborn in DR Congo
Oct 9, 2018 - 05:01 pm .- Among those being canonized on Sunday are Fr. Franceso Spinelli, a diocesan priest through whose intercession a newborn was saved from death in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Algerian martyrs to be beatified in December
Sep 14, 2018 - 06:01 pm .- The Algerian bishops' conference has announced that the beatification of Bishop Pierre Claverie and his 18 companions, who were martyred in the country between 1994 and 1996, will be held Dec. 8.

Now a cardinal, Giovanni Angelo Becciu heads to congregation for saints' causes
Jun 28, 2018 - 11:41 am .- Newly-minted Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu will resign from his post as substitute of the Secretariat of State tomorrow, in anticipation of his appointment as prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints later this summer.

Pope Francis creates new path to beatification under ‘offering of life’
Jul 11, 2017 - 06:22 am .- On Tuesday Pope Francis declared a new category of Christian life suitable for consideration of beatification called “offering of life” – in which a person has died prematurely through an offering of their life for love of God and neighbor.
 
Twentieth century Polish nurse among causes advancing toward sainthood
Jul 7, 2017 - 06:14 am .- Pope Francis on Friday approved a miracle attributed to the intercession of the Venerable Hanna Chrzanowska, a Polish nurse and nursing instructor who died from cancer in 1973, paving the way for her beatification.
 
Sainthood causes advance, including layman who resisted fascism
Jun 17, 2017 - 09:22 am .- Pope Francis on Friday recognized the heroic virtue of six persons on the path to canonization, as well as the martyrdom of an Italian man who died from injuries of a beating he received while imprisoned in a concentration camp for resisting fascism.
 
Solanus Casey, Cardinal Van Thuan among those advanced toward sainthood
May 4, 2017 - 10:47 am .- Pope Francis on Thursday approved decrees of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints advancing the causes for canonization of 12 individuals, including the American-born Capuchin Solanus Casey and the Vietnamese cardinal Francis Xavier Nguen Van Thuan.
 
Pope clears way for canonization of Fatima visionaries
Mar 23, 2017 - 06:44 am .- On Thursday Pope Francis approved the second and final miracle needed to canonize Blessed Francisco and Jacinta Marto, two of the shepherd children who witnessed the Fatima Marian apparitions.
Surgeon and father among sainthood causes moving forward
Feb 27, 2017 - 11:03 am .- Pope Francis recognized on Monday the heroic virtue of eight persons on the path to canonization, including an Italian surgeon and father of eight who suffered from several painful diseases throughout his life.

Records on life of Father Flanagan, founder of Boys Town, presented at Vatican
Jul 23, 2019 - 03:01 am .- The cause for canonization of Servant of God Edward Flanagan, the priest who founded Nebraska's Boys Town community for orphans and other boys, advanced Monday with the presentation of a summary of records on his life.

Archbishop Fulton Sheen to be beatified
Jul 6, 2019 - 04:00 am .- Pope Francis approved the miracle attributed to Archbishop Fulton Sheen Friday, making possible the American television catechist's beatification.

Brooklyn diocese advances sainthood cause of local priest
Jun 25, 2019 - 03:01 am .- The Bishop of Brooklyn accepted last week the findings of a nine-year diocesan investigation into the life of Monsignor Bernard John Quinn, known for fighting bigotry and serving the African American population, as part of his cause for canonization.

Fr. Augustus Tolton, former African American slave, advances toward sainthood
Jun 12, 2019 - 05:03 am .- Fr. Augustus Tolton advanced along the path to sainthood Wednesday, making the runaway slave-turned-priest one step closer to being the first black American saint.

Pope Francis will beatify these martyred Greek-Catholic bishops in Romania
May 30, 2019 - 03:01 pm .- On Sunday in Blaj, Pope Francis will beatify seven Greek-Catholic bishops of Romania who were killed by the communist regime between 1950 and 1970.
 
Woman who served Brazil’s poorest to be canonized
May 14, 2019 - 06:53 am .- Pope Francis Tuesday gave his approval for eight sainthood causes to proceed, including that of Bl. Dulce Lopes Pontes, a 20th-century religious sister who served Brazil’s poor.

Seven 20th-century Romanian bishops declared martyrs
Mar 19, 2019 - 12:01 pm .- Pope Francis declared Tuesday the martyrdom of seven Greek-Catholic bishops killed by the communist regime in Romania in the mid-20th century.

Pope advances sainthood causes of 17 women
Jan 15, 2019 - 11:12 am .- Pope Francis approved Tuesday the next step in the canonization causes of 17 women from four countries, including the martyrdom of 14 religious sisters killed in Spain at the start of the Spanish Civil War.
 
Nineteen Algerian martyrs beatified
Dec 10, 2018 - 03:08 pm .- Bishop Pierre Claverie and his 18 companions, who were martyred in Algeria between 1994 and 1996, were beatified Saturday during a Mass in Oran.

The Algerian martyrs shed their blood for Christ, pope says
Dec 7, 2018 - 10:02 am .- Ahead of the beatification Saturday of Bishop Pierre Claverie and his 18 companions, who were martyred in Algeria between 1994 and 1996, Pope Francis said martyrs have a special place in the Church.
Algerian martyrs are models for the Church, archbishop says
Nov 16, 2018 - 03:01 am .- Archbishop Paul Desfarges of Algiers has said that Bishop Pierre Claverie and his 18 companions, who were martyred in Algeria between 1994 and 1996, are “models for our lives as disciples today and tomorrow.”
 
Francesco Spinelli to be canonized after healing of a newborn in DR Congo
Oct 9, 2018 - 05:01 pm .- Among those being canonized on Sunday are Fr. Franceso Spinelli, a diocesan priest through whose intercession a newborn was saved from death in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Algerian martyrs to be beatified in December
Sep 14, 2018 - 06:01 pm .- The Algerian bishops' conference has announced that the beatification of Bishop Pierre Claverie and his 18 companions, who were martyred in the country between 1994 and 1996, will be held Dec. 8.

Now a cardinal, Giovanni Angelo Becciu heads to congregation for saints' causes
Jun 28, 2018 - 11:41 am .- Newly-minted Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu will resign from his post as substitute of the Secretariat of State tomorrow, in anticipation of his appointment as prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints later this summer.

Pope Francis creates new path to beatification under ‘offering of life’
Jul 11, 2017 - 06:22 am .- On Tuesday Pope Francis declared a new category of Christian life suitable for consideration of beatification called “offering of life” – in which a person has died prematurely through an offering of their life for love of God and neighbor.
 
Twentieth century Polish nurse among causes advancing toward sainthood
Jul 7, 2017 - 06:14 am .- Pope Francis on Friday approved a miracle attributed to the intercession of the Venerable Hanna Chrzanowska, a Polish nurse and nursing instructor who died from cancer in 1973, paving the way for her beatification.
 
Sainthood causes advance, including layman who resisted fascism
Jun 17, 2017 - 09:22 am .- Pope Francis on Friday recognized the heroic virtue of six persons on the path to canonization, as well as the martyrdom of an Italian man who died from injuries of a beating he received while imprisoned in a concentration camp for resisting fascism.
 
Solanus Casey, Cardinal Van Thuan among those advanced toward sainthood
May 4, 2017 - 10:47 am .- Pope Francis on Thursday approved decrees of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints advancing the causes for canonization of 12 individuals, including the American-born Capuchin Solanus Casey and the Vietnamese cardinal Francis Xavier Nguen Van Thuan.
 
Pope clears way for canonization of Fatima visionaries
Mar 23, 2017 - 06:44 am .- On Thursday Pope Francis approved the second and final miracle needed to canonize Blessed Francisco and Jacinta Marto, two of the shepherd children who witnessed the Fatima Marian apparitions.
Surgeon and father among sainthood causes moving forward
Feb 27, 2017 - 11:03 am .- Pope Francis recognized on Monday the heroic virtue of eight persons on the path to canonization, including an Italian surgeon and father of eight who suffered from several painful diseases throughout his life.

8 Martyrs Move Closer to Sainthood 8 July, 2016
Posted by ZENIT Staff on 8 July, 2016

The angel appears to Saint Monica
This morning, Pope Francis received Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, Cardinal Angelo Amato. During the audience, he authorized the promulgation of decrees concerning the following causes:

***
MIRACLES:
Miracle attributed to the intercession of the Venerable Servant of God Luis Antonio Rosa Ormières, priest and founder of the Congregation of the Sisters of the Holy Guardian Angel; born July 4, 1809 and died on Jan. 16, 1890
MARTYRDOM:
Servants of God Antonio Arribas Hortigüela and 6 Companions, Missionaries of the Sacred Heart; killed in hatred of the Faith, Sept. 29, 1936
Servant of God Josef Mayr-Nusser, a layman; killed in hatred of the Faith, Feb. 24, 1945
HEROIC VIRTUE:

Servant of God Alfonse Gallegos of the Order of Augustinian Recollects, Titular Bishop of Sasabe, auxiliary of Sacramento; born Feb. 20, 1931 and died Oct. 6, 1991
Servant of God Rafael Sánchez García, diocesan priest; born June 14, 1911 and died on Aug. 8, 1973
Servant of God Andrés García Acosta, professed layman of the Order of Friars Minor; born Jan. 10, 1800 and died Jan. 14, 1853
Servant of God Joseph Marchetti, professed priest of the Congregation of the Missionaries of St. Charles; born Oct. 3, 1869 and died Dec. 14, 1896
Servant of God Giacomo Viale, professed priest of the Order of Friars Minor, pastor of Bordighera; born Feb. 28, 1830 and died April 16, 1912
Servant of God Maria Pia of the Cross (née Maddalena Notari), foundress of the Congregation of Crucified Sisters Adorers of the Eucharist; born Dec. 2, 1847 and died on July 1, 1919
Sunday, November 23 2014 Six to Be Canonized on Feast of Christ the King.

On the List Are Lay Founder of a Hospital and Eastern Catholic Religious
VATICAN CITY, June 12, 2014 (Zenit.org) - Today, the Vatican announced that during the celebration of the feast of Christ the King on Sunday, November 23, an ordinary public consistory will be held for the canonization of the following six blesseds, who include a lay founder of a hospital for the poor, founders of religious orders, and two members of the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church, an Eastern Catholic Church in full communion with the Holy See:
-Giovanni Antonio Farina (1803-1888), an Italian bishop who founded the Institute of the Sisters Teachers of Saint Dorothy, Daughters of the Sacred Hearts
-Kuriakose Elias Chavara (1805-1871), a Syro-Malabar priest in India who founded the Carmelites of Mary Immaculate
-Ludovico of Casoria (1814-1885), an Italian Franciscan priest who founded the Gray Sisters of St. Elizabeth
-Nicola Saggio (Nicola da Longobardi, 1650-1709), an Italian oblate of the Order of Minims
-Euphrasia Eluvathingal (1877-1952), an Indian Carmelite of the Syro-Malabar Church
-Amato Ronconi (1238-1304), an Italian, Third Order Franciscan who founded a hospital for poor pilgrims

CAUSES OF SAINTS July 2015.
Pope Recognizes Heroic Virtues of Ukrainian Archbishop
Recognition Brings Metropolitan Archbishop Andrey Sheptytsky Closer to Beatification
By Junno Arocho Esteves Rome, July 17, 2015 (ZENIT.org)
Pope Francis recognized the heroic virtues of Ukrainian Greek Catholic Archbishop Andrey Sheptytsky. According to a communique released by the Holy See Press Office, the Holy Father met this morning with Cardinal Angelo Amato, Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.

The Pope also recognized the heroic virtues of several religious/lay men and women from Italy, Spain, France & Mexico.
Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky is considered to be one of the most influential 20th century figures in the history of the Ukrainian Church.
Enthroned as Metropolitan of Lviv in 1901, Archbishop Sheptytsky was arrested shortly after the outbreak of World War I in 1914 by the Russians. After his imprisonment in several prisons in Russia and the Ukraine, the Archbishop was released in 1918.

The Ukrainian Greek Catholic prelate was also an ardent supporter of the Jewish community in Ukraine, going so far as to learn Hebrew to better communicate with them. He also was a vocal protestor against atrocities committed by the Nazis, evidenced in his pastoral letter, "Thou Shalt Not Kill." He was also known to harbor thousands of Jews in his residence and in Greek Catholic monasteries.
Following his death in 1944, his cause for canonization was opened in 1958.
* * *
The Holy Father authorized the Congregation to promulgate the following decrees regarding the heroic virtues of:
- Servant of God Andrey Sheptytsky, O.S.B.M., major archbishop of Leopolis of the Ukrainians, metropolitan of Halyc (1865-1944);
- Servant of God Giuseppe Carraro, Bishop of Verona, Italy (1899-1980);
- Servant of God Agustin Ramirez Barba, Mexican diocesan priest and founder of the Servants of the Lord of Mercy (1881-1967);
- Servant of God Simpliciano della Nativita (ne Aniello Francesco Saverio Maresca), Italian professed priest of the Order of Friars Minor, founder of the Franciscan Sisters of the Sacred Hearts (1827-1898);
- Servant of God Maria del Refugio Aguilar y Torres del Cancino, Mexican founder of the Mercedarian Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament (1866-1937);
- Servant of God Marie-Charlotte Dupouy Bordes (Marie-Teresa), French professed religious of the Society of the Religious of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary (1873-1953);
- Servant of God Elisa Miceli, Italian founder of the Rural Catechist Sisters of the Sacred Heart (1904-1976);
- Servant of God Isabel Mendez Herrero (Isabel of Mary Immaculate), Spanish professed nun of the Servants of St. Joseph (1924-1953)
October 01, 2015 Vatican City, Pope Authorizes following Decrees
(ZENIT.org) By Staff Reporter
Polish Layperson Recognized as Servant of God
Pope Authorizes Decrees
Pope Francis on Wednesday authorised the Congregation for Saints' Causes to promulgate the following decrees:

MARTYRDOM
- Servant of God Valentin Palencia Marquina, Spanish diocesan priest, killed in hatred of the faith in Suances, Spain in 1937;

HEROIC VIRTUES
- Servant of God Giovanni Folci, Italian diocesan priest and founder of the Opera Divin Prigioniero (1890-1963);
- Servant of God Franciszek Blachnicki, Polish diocesan priest (1921-1987);
- Servant of God Jose Rivera Ramirez, Spanish diocesan priest (1925-1991);
- Servant of God Juan Manuel Martín del Campo, Mexican diocesan priest (1917-1996);
- Servant of God Antonio Filomeno Maria Losito, Italian professed priest of the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer (1838-1917);
- Servant of God Maria Benedetta Giuseppa Frey (nee Ersilia Penelope), Italian professed nun of the Cistercian Order (1836-1913);
- Servant of God Hanna Chrzanowska, Polish layperson, Oblate of the Ursulines of St. Benedict (1902-1973).
March 06 2016 MIRACLES authorised the Congregation to promulgate the following decrees:
Pope Francis received in a private audience Cardinal Angelo Amato, prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, during which he authorised the Congregation to promulgate the following decrees:
MIRACLES

– Blessed Manuel González García, bishop of Palencia, Spain, founder of the Eucharistic Missionaries of Nazareth (1877-1940);
– Blessed Elisabeth of the Trinity (née Elisabeth Catez), French professed religious of the Order of Discalced Carmelites (1880-1906);
– Venerable Servant of God Marie-Eugène of the Child Jesus (né Henri Grialou), French professed priest of the Order of Discalced Carmelites, founder of the Secular Institute “Notre-Dame de Vie” (1894-1967);
– Venerable Servant of God María Antonia of St. Joseph (née María Antonio de Paz y Figueroa), Argentine founder of the Beaterio of the Spiritual Exercise of Buenos Aires (1730-1799);
HEROIC VIRTUE

– Servant of God Stefano Ferrando, Italian professed priest of the Salesians, bishop of Shillong, India, founder of the Congregation of Missionary Sisters of Mary Help of Christians (1895-1978);
– Servant of God Enrico Battista Stanislao Verjus, Italian professed priest of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, coadjutor of the apostolic vicariate of New Guinea (1860-1892);
– Servant of God Giovanni Battista Quilici, Italian diocesan priest, founder of the Congregation of the Daughters of the Crucified (1791-1844);
– Servant of God Bernardo Mattio, Italian diocesan priest (1845-1914);
– Servant of God Quirico Pignalberi, Italian professed priest of the Order of Friars Minor Conventual (1891-1982);
– Servant of God Teodora Campostrini, Italian founder of the Minim Sisters of Charity of Our Lady of Sorrows (1788-1860);
– Servant of God Bianca Piccolomini Clementini, Italian founder of the Company of St. Angela Merici di Siena (1875-1959);
– Servant of God María Nieves of the Holy Family (née María Nieves Sánchez y Fernández), Spanish professed religious of the Daughters of Mary of the Pious Schools (1900-1978).

April 26 2016 MIRACLES authorised the Congregation to promulgate the following decrees:
Here is the full list of decrees approved by the Pope:

MIRACLES
– Blessed Alfonso Maria Fusco, diocesan priest and founder of the Congregation of the Sisters of St. John the Baptist (1839-1910);
– Venerable Servant of God John Sullivan, professed priest of the Society of Jesus (1861-1933);
MARTYRDOM
– Servants of God Nikolle Vinçenc Prennushi, O.F.M., archbishop of Durres, Albania, and 37 companions killed between 1945 and 1974;
– Servants of God José Antón Gómez and three companions of the Benedictines of Madrid, Spain, killed 1936;
HEROIC VIRTUES
– Servant of God Thomas Choe Yang-Eop, diocesan priest (1821-1861);
– Servant of God Sosio Del Prete (né Vincenzo), professed priest of the Order of Friars Minor, founder of the Congregation of the Little Servants of Christ the King (1885-1952);
– Servant of God Wenanty Katarzyniec (né Jósef), professed priest of the Order of Friars Minor Conventual (1889-1921);
– Servant of God Maria Consiglia of the Holy Spirity (née Emilia Paqualina Addatis), founder of the Congregation of the Sisters of the Addolorata, Servants of Mary (1845-1900);
– Servant of God Maria of the Incarnation (née Caterina Carrasco Tenorio), founder of the Congregation of the Franciscan Tertiary Sisters of the Flock of Mary (1840-1917);
– Servant of God , founder of the Congregation of the Sisters of the Family of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (1851-1923);
– Servant of God Ilia Corsaro, founder of the Congregation of the Little Missionaries of the Eucharist (1897-1977);
– Servant of God Maria Montserrat Grases García, layperson of the Personal Prelature of the Holy Cross and Opus Dei (1941-1959).
LINKS:
Marian Apparitions (over 2000)  India Marian Shrine Lourdes of the East   Lourdes Feb 11- July 16, Loreto, Italy 1858 
China
Marian shrines
May 23, 1995 Zarvintisya Ukraine Lourdes Kenya national Marian shrine    Quang Tri Vietnam La Vang 1798  
Links to Related
Marian Websites  Angels and Archangels
Doctors_of_the_Church   Acts_Apostles  Roman Catholic Popes  Purgatory  Uniates, 219 2023